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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©laprT^ Sj^ri^ f 0.... 

Shelf i'-.t 45 



1 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



REST A WHILE. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR 



A YEAR OF BLESSINGS 



AND 



A BLESSED YEAR 



i6mo, Cloth, Red Edges, Uniform with this 
Binding, $i.oo. 



" A capital compilation of Bible beatitudes and prom- 
ises, with subjoined sentiments from various choice 
writers so happily .collected and placed as to look very 
like comments upon the text above. There is a Scrip- 
ture text with one of these nuggets or thoughts beneath 

it for every day in the year Of the innumera- 

ble books of this kind that have recently been publish- 
ed^ this is one of the very besty — Observer, 



REST A WHILE. 



/ 

By rose porter, 

Author of^^In Quietness and in Confidence^'' ''^ Year of 
Blessing^' ''A Modern St» Christopher ^ Etc, Etc, 



X 



f^ 



^ 




te 



NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 



\- 






Copyright, 1888, by 
Anson D. F. Randolph & Company. 



The Library 
of congrbss 



WASmNOTOR 



PRESS OP 

EDWARD O. JENKINS' SONS 

NEW YORK. 



*^ Come ye apart .... a?id Rest a whileJ** 

Mark vi. 31. 

Is any grieved or tired? Yea, by God*s Will , 
Surely God's Will alone is good and best ; 
O weary man, in weariness take Rest, 
O hungry man, by hujtger feast thy fill ^ 
Discern thy good beneath a mask of ill, 

Or build of loneliness thy secret nest ; 

At noon take heart being mindful of the west. 
At night wake hope, for dawn advances still. 
At night wake hope. Poor soul, in such sore need 

Of wakening and of girding up anew. 

Hast thou that hope which fainting doth pursue ? 

No saint but hath pursued and hath been faint j 
Bid hve wake hope, for both thy steps shall speed. 
Still faint, yet still pursuing, thou saint J* 



CONTENTS 



Prelude, 

I. — Rest a While, 
II. — Children of Light, 
III. — The Seeing Eye, . 
IV. — The Problem of Prayer, 
v.— The ** I Am" Titles of Christ, 
VI. — Thoughts on Prayer, . 
VII. — Grace for Grace, 
VIII. — Called to be Saints, ; 
IX. — Angels by the Way, 
X.— Looking Toward Sunrise, . 



PAGE 

9 

13 

43 

65 

97 

115 

149 

177 

199 
217 
245 



PRELUDE. 

You tell me, dear H , the Leaflets con- 
tained in the volume, " In Quietness and in 
Confidence/' have helped you and others 
over some of the rough places one comes 
to in life's pilgrimage. And you ask for a 
continuance of pages from my " Heart-to- 
Heart " diary, that deal with kindred top- 
ics. I grant your request, for, since " none 
of us may know — except the end — whither 
our onward way may lead,*' I would fain 
aid you, if you come to a still rougher road, 
by passing on for your perusal a few of the 
comfort-thoughts by which God has com- 
forted me. 

^ I need hardly remind you, like their fore- 
runners, these fragments make no claim to 
theological value, or learned solving of the 
difficulties that are now perplexing your 

(9) 



lO PRELUDE. 

I 

mind and trying your soul. Neither are 

they bound by rules of strictly systematic 
arrangement ; they are simply prompted by 
a yearning tenderness and sympathy that 
seeks to lighten doubt and soften sorrow. — 
And thus I venture them forth with the 
hope that He who loves and pities like a 
Father, will, in His infinite condescension, 
allow them to lead some of His tired chil- 
dren, and you among ihem, to come apart, 
and Rest a while. 



REST A WHILE, 



**The Lord thy God is mighty Rest in His 

Love." — Zep. iii. 17. 

"This is the Rest wherewith ye may cause the 
weary to Rest." — Is. xxviii. 12. 

"Thou shalt Rest and stand in thy lot."— DAN. 
xii. 13. 

*' Only thy restless heart keep still, 
.... in cheerful hope, content 
To take whatever His gracious Will, 
His all-discerning Love hath sent. 
Doubt not your inmost wants are known 
To Him who chose you for His own." 

And who calls you to "come apart .... and Rest 
a while." 



1^ 



I. 

REST A WHILE. 

HAVE you ever thought, dear H , 
how Christ meets the individual 
wants of all who seek Him on their own 
ground or level ? Thus the wise men were 
led to Him by the guidance of a star ; the 
penitent by the story of the returning prodi- 
gal ; the woman at the well by a parable of 
living water ; the seeker after salvation by 
the goodly pearl. But I will not enumerate 
these examples, though they are to be found 
in well-nigh every one of our Lord's para- 
bles and recorded words. For so tender is 
His recognition of the needs of His follow- 
ers, He multiplies offers of grace to satisfy 
their varied demands ; and that these prof- 
fered blessings may be evident to all, we 
find them illustrated by metaphors drawn 
from the most familiar objects and traits of 
character. Among them, the universal de- 
US) 



14 REST A WHILE. 

sire for Rest is more than once referred to, 
and to my mind, the tenderest of the Gos- 
pel invitations bidding us seek it, is the one 
contained in the words : " Come ye your- 
selves apart into a desert place, and rest a 
while/' Into a desert ! A strange place, 
you say ; to call the weary. Yes — I know, 
but I also know, God our Father is some- 
times closest in the wilderness — and some- 
how, in hours of darkness, we feel as we do 
not in the light, the pressure of His Hand. 
I know, too, it is Christ Himself who thus 
bids us ^' Come.'* Hence there must be Rest 
there. That we might be sure of this, our 
Saviour's words in their wide-reaching com- 
passion, were not limited by either the place 
or time of their utterance. And as though 
He anticipated, a doubt of their power to 
remain thus applicable * for always,' might 
naturally arise as the years following His 
life on earth came to be counted by hun- 
dreds. He told His Father, and thus our 
Father, of you, and of me, for when He 
prayed for His early disciples. He added : 
^' Neither pray I for these alone, but /or 
those who shall believe " (John xvii. 20). 

ThuS; whether Christ's words belong to 



REST A WHILE. Xj 

you, dear H , depends upon the answer 

your heart can give to the question, Do you 
believe ? If you do, blessed indeed is your 
portion ; for He has promised : " My pres- 
ence shall go with thee, and I will give thee 
Rest/' and *^ He satisfieth the longing soul," 
and *^ fiUeth the hungry with goodness/* 
" He stayeth his rough wind," for " He 
knoweth our frame," and " His tender mer- 
cies are over all His works." Surely, the 
mere thought of all this is Rest, for thought 
feeds and soothes the heart, just as dew 
feeds the lilies, and sunshine the corn ; and 
you tell me you are tired, so this invitation 
to Rest is an especial word for you. And 
as I said, Christ comes by it down to the 
level of your want, and when He thus draws 
near, comfort and calm come too. But re- 
member, it is a very different thing for Him 
to reach out a Hand of Love that touches 
your infirmities with the encompassing of 
His sympathy, than it is for you to try 
to bring that sympathy down to your 
own level, rather than to lift yourself by 
it up nearer to Him. If you ponder the 
word which prefaces this blessed invitation 
to ** Rest a while," you will understand this 



l6 REST A WHILE. 

for it is a word which leads away from self 
to Christ. It points also to the very start- 
ing place of Christian life, which expands 
with every onward and upward step. A 
minute's thought of the Adoration of the 
Shepherds, followed by that of the Magi, 
will help you to comprehend this spiritual 
progressiveness : for you will observe they 
both run parallel to your own experience. 
The Shepherds, coming just as they were, 
revealing the first step, and the Magi bring- 
ing gifts the second, which suggests a ser- 
vice in advance of simply coming. It also 
shows that they recognized Christ as the 
Lord, and thus offered Him their richest 
treasures, just as we no sooner come to 
Him, than we find He is in very truth our 
King, as well as our Saviour. And while 
His salvation is free, — as King, He claims our 
allegiance, — and, like the Magi, we long to 
give Him our very best, even the gold of 
service ; the frankincense of love ; and the 
myrrh of humble submission of our will to 
His will. 

This last gift, I know, requires on your 
part much of self-abnegation, but the only 
way to attain true rest and peace is through 



REST A WHILE. 



17 



Struggle ; for to know rest, we must know 
weariness ; to know the blessedness of 
peace, we must know conflict. Never- 
theless, there are degrees in struggle, and 
its keenness is measured to you by the diffi- 
culties and perplexed questions which at- 
tack your active mind with a persistency a 
more passive intellect can hardly under- 
stand. But do not lose heart if you make 
slow progress, for your "sufficiency is of 
God/* Rest in Him, then, and wait pa- 
tiently for Him, despite the present up- 
rooting of your soul : 

** And whatever trial He may lay 
Upon thee, trust Him through it, and give thanks. 
And when thy heart is heavy, think on Him ; 
And when thy need is greatest, call on Him ; 
Hold fast God's promise, and remember this." 

And then, however hard a struggle it costs, 
when thus you yield your will to God's, and 
render to Him the best of your love, ser- 
vice, praise, duty, and faith, you will know 
how it is that "He ordains rest for those 
who walk in His ways and keep His com- 
mandments.'' When once you have a clear 
and abiding consciousness of this, it will be 



l8 REST A WHILE. 

something so dear and precious, you will 
cease to regret that its attainment required 
the ^^ trial of your faith, even as gold tried 
bv fire." 

But meanwhile, you tell me, you are in 
the midst of conflict, and what you want is 
comfort, help, and rest for this present 
time, while your faith is being tested by 
the clashing world, the worry and wear of 
daily life, and the doubts and perplexities 
environing this age of mental activity and 
highly-wrought culture, which induces a 
spirit of unrest, that leads you to question 
if it be possible so sweet, so calm, so peace- 
ful a thing as Rest can ever upspring from 
all this turmoil. Yes, dear, it can. Re- 
member the storm-tossed waves of the 
Galilean lake, and Christ's command : 
" Peace be still, and there was a great 
calm." Remember also, though God's 
children of old found the waters of Ma- 
rah bitter, only a little farther on they 
came to " Elim's wells and palm-trees, 
three score and more." And there they 
rested, and in their experience you may 
find your own prefigured ; the present bit- 
terness being the pathway to rest. For as 



REST A WHILE. j^ 

the elements of a new life gradually collect 
from the destruction of the old, and new 
ideas, new points of view, new perceptions 
of God and His world blossom out of them, 
you will find the enlarged view serves to 
make life nobler, fuller, and richer, and 
God and Heaven more near and more real. 
You will find also, that nothing, even 
a seemingly trifling event, or passing shade 
of feeling, is too small, to be of value 
to Him, who ^' considered the lilies of the 
field, and the birds of the air." Thus you 
will be kept from spiritual narrowness, or 
rather your out-look will be widened by 
this appreciation of little things ; as well as 
by the high indwelling motive, which con- 
secrates your every thought and deed, affix- 
ing to them the blessed signature, ^' Unto 
Him." Such a consecration encompasses 
daily life, with the " sunshine of the morn- 
ing," even though it may be beset with 
many trials, for in response to the soul's 
effort to thus follow Christ, comes the sweet 
assurance, "the Lord hath need of you"; 
and that can fill the most toilsome service 
with joy. And yet He never permits a need, 
which leads Him to forget that in these 



20 REST A WHILE. 

mortal lives of ours, the spiritual, and the 
physical, go hand in hand. Perhaps no- 
where in the Gospel is this truth portrayed 
with a brighter radiance, than in the verse 
I have chosen as a centre of calm, for our 
thoughts to cluster around as we meditate 
on Rest. — Rest ! which we can only find 
where Christ found it, in humble trust in 
our Father's Will. The chapter in which 
this invitation shines like a sunbeam, opens, 
as you will remember, by our Lord's send- 
ing forth His disciples to preach that men 
should repent, and then follows one of the 
saddest histories contained in the Bible, 
and one full of solemn warning. For history 
is magnified biography, and in a certain way, 
we have received into ourselves the essence of 
the past, which is unfolded in our lives again. 
That we may realize this, the Bible shows 
us characters composed of the same con- 
tradictory traits, we find in our own hearts, 
though, God grant, we find no reflection of 
our own self-hood in this history of a wicked, 
weak king, a jealous woman, and her heart- 
less daughter, whose cruel request was fol- 
low^ed by the beheading of the wilderness 
prophet, John the Baptist, an event the 



REST A WHILE. 21 

disciples returning from their mission, 
^'gathered about Jesus to tell/* 

And now begin the lessons for our conso- 
lation, and the examples for us to follow, 
which this chapter is full of, and which all 
lead to Rest. And yet, as I attempt to 
point you to their deep inner heart of mean- 
ing, I realize, it is hidden in the folds of 
unrest, like a precious pearl encased in the 
rough shell that is tossed landward by ad- 
verse winds, and breaking waves. I remem- 
ber also, we are at best but sealed books to 
one another ; hence though these be heart- 
to-heart pages, they can no more secure rest 
for you, than they can make rules to gov- 
ern your life ; the most they can do, is to 
pass on suggestions of what I have found 
helpful, which may perhaps guide you to 
the Rest that upsprings from thinking of 
blessings, apart from trials. For while you 
may at this very hour, be encompassed by 
a present full of temptation, sorrow, dark- 
ness, and uncertainty, it is a present full of 
comforts, mercies, and duties, and I venture 
to add, joys. For that we can be "sorrow- 
ful yet rejoicing,'' St. Paul tells us, and 
though now you " see not the bright side, 



2 2 REST A WHILE. 

that there is in the clouds, yet the wind 
passeth over and cleanseth them," and then 
you will see it, for "it will be the clear 
shining after rain." — And what if the rain 
came first ? 

To return to the comfort and guidance 
we are to find in Christ's reception of the 
disciples when they sought Him in all the 
poignancy of their grief, agitation, and in- 
dignation over John's death : notice the ex- 
ample it contains for us, when we are sorely 
tried by injustice, or the evil doing of others. 
We read no word of Christ's anger ; we are 
simply told, " He went over the sea (com- 
pare verse 23 and Luke ix. 18) with His 
disciples," that they might " rest a while," 
and in a quiet place apart acquire the self- 
control, and calmness of spirit, needful, if 
they were to live up to the high standard 
He set before them when He taught, " For- 
give men their trespasses " ; " Love your ene- 
mies, bless them that curse you, do good 
to them that hate you, and pray for them 
that despitefully use you, and persecute 
you" (Matt. v. 11). Another lesson which 
I think we may find in Christ's thus calling 
His disciples apart, will teach us humility, 



REST A WHILE. 23 

for does not their need of seclusion suggest 
that they were over-elated with all they had 
done ? And is it not often thus, that we, 
too, are led apart to "^ rest a while,'* and to 
learn the humbling lesson, that the world 
goes on without us, important as our work 
has seemed ? It is well, even though pain- 
ful to learn this, for there is always danger 
in the midst of active service, of becoming 
absorbed in self, and what self accomplish- 
es ; danger even, of becoming so engrossed 
with our Christian character and attain- 
ments, that we forget our privileges and 
possessions as Christians, combine the rest 
of meditation, and communion, with active 
service. But when our eyes are opened to 
this danger, if we tell our Heavenly Father 
w^e are afraid of becoming one-sided Chris- 
tians, afraid of being like a tree that puts 
forth leaves on one side only. He will call 
us to come apart, that the other side may 
find time to grow and blossom. Yes, we 
can trust Him to polish both sides of the 
"white stone," on which He writes the "new 
name," knowing, He will find a place on it 
for the graces developed by activity, as well 
as for the passive graces of patience and 



2^ REST A WHILE. 

meekness. But polishing is no easy procesf- - 
and thus the grace that needs to be per- 
fected by our being led apart, is sometimes 
an experience of temptation, trial, and lone- 
liness, that is truly well emblemed by a 
desert. Yet these are the experiences that 
show us, while it is easy to trust when all 
goes well; to trust when all seems to go 
against us, is the real trust, in which the 
soul finds rest, for it is then it learns how- 
ever rough the waters of life's ocean, under- 
neath are the "everlasting arms,'* and they 
are a safe resting-place for a weary heart. 
But the submission that seeks their enfold- 
ing must be an actual and full surrender of 
body and soul, mind and will, for it de- 
mands the giving up of self; hence it is a 
very slow growth, and the stronger the will, 
the slower. At first it may be all conflict, 
and an increasing sense of your will op- 
posed to God's Will. Nevertheless, as sure- 
ly as morning follows night, when you 
yield, rest of soul will come j for " He will 
accept the whole burnt-offering, and give 
you the desire of thy heart." " He will give 
you rest, so that you dwell in safety"; sub- 
mit yourself therefore unto God, in all the 



REST A WHILE. 25 

ways by which He teaches submission. 
Seemingly very insignificant ways some- 
times, and yet, such ways are often the 
hardest to meet with a bright, cheerful ac- 
ceptance of all God sends, — and, — can any- 
thing which has power to tempt, or to stir 
an evil disposition within us, be called in- 
significant ? Certainly if the very " hairs 
of our head are numbered,'' nothing is too 
small for the Heavenly Father to notice. 
Think of this the next time you are tried by 
" little things." Remember also, the mould- 
ing that comes through the discipline of 
life's every-dayness, helps perhaps, more 
than great trials, to conform you to the 
likeness of Christ, and so I repeat, be satis- 
fied with all the ways, little and great, by 
which God is educating you. As you seek 
to know wherein consists the spirit of true 
submission, ponder Peter's question, "Why 
cannot I follow Thee now ? " and Christ's 
reply ; they will teach you a lesson worth 
more than folios of man's wisdom, for 
you will learn, that submission means to 
give yourself to Christ in childlike obe- 
dience, content to be guided by Him, when 
from following your own way and wishes, 



26 REST A WHILE. 

He calls you, saying : " Come unto Me, 
take My yoke upon you, learn of Me, .... 
and find Rest unto your soul/' 

This thought of submission as the path- 
way to rest, suggests patience, which leads 
to rest by much the same way ; and yet, I 
often wonder, why as we strive to define 
patience, we so merge it into submission, 
for while it almost always prefaces it, and 
while in learning the one, we also learn the 
other^ there is a difference between them, 
just as there is a difference in the rest they 
lead to. For the rest that blossoms out of 
patience, is found in waiting before God ; 
refraining from all eagerness, and the spirit 
of haste, which sometimes tempts the soul 
to try to outrun God's leading. That this 
patience is a difficult state of mind to ac- 
quire we know, from the words that tell us : 
"Tribulation worketh patience." "Possess 
your soul in patience." "Ye have need of 
patience." What a picture-like verse this 
last is. Does it not show you yourself at 
some hour of temptation, when as sudden- 
ly as the waters of a mountain lake are 
ruffled by an unlooked-for storm, your 
heart is betrayed into quick, impatient ut- 



REST A WHILE. 



27 



terance, that all in a moment seems to 
destroy the self-control you have been 
seeking for months, and which for the 
timCj makes you feel as though resting in 
patience, is a lesson you can never learn, and 
you never can except as you turn to the 
God of Patience, our Refuge and Help in 
time of trouble ; for there is no other cure 
for impatience, save that found in abiding 
so close to Him, that you will neither speak 
nor act without Him. But while this is the 
only cure, there are helps to the cure, and 
chief among them is silence, or when speech 
is necessary, a careful restraint, which tries 
not to speak until first you have asked God 
to help you. Try to discover, also, the 
things that are most wont to make you im- 
patient, and avoid them as much as you 
can, for that is your part toward the accom- 
plishment of the daily petition you offer, 
when you pray, "lead me not into tempta- 
tion." If it is God's Will that you must 
meet the temptation, then just look to Him, 
and He will help you, and after the trial 
has done its appointed work, He W\\\ lead 
vou to Rest. And Rest will aid vou to at- 
tain the cheerfulness of spirit, which is as 



28 REST A WHILE. 

truly a part of Christian duty, as subiiJs- 
sion, and whicli is impossible during hours 
of struggle ; for only as the heart is at rest 
and forgetful of self, can real cheerful- 
ness exist, which it can do amid much out- 
side turmoil. If by temperament you are 
not naturally cheerful, it will be a hard task 
to master self sufficiently, to become so ; but 
take courage from the fact, that cultivated 
virtues may be like those grafts, which the 
gardener tells us, become the branches that 
bear the strongest fruit and sweetest flow- 
ers. But as I said, natural or cultivated 
cheerfulness is a condition of mind that can 
only be found beyond the narrow boundary 
of self^ and circumstances, for it consists in rest- 
ing satisfied with God's Will, desiring no 
change in it ; and in following Him who 
went about doing good. When thus em- 
ployed you will straightway become free 
from the bondage of thought centred on 
self, and it is wonderful how a life "hid in 
Christ," and thus in His people, — for He 
said, " Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of the 
least of these My brethren, ye do it unto 
Me," — can gladden even a lonely, sad pres- 
ent, with fore-gleams, not only of the bless- 



REST A WHILE. 



29 



ed hereafter, but with the joy that rejoices 
with others, till their pleasure becomes 
one's own. You tell me you shrink from 
thus finding happiness by proxy. You say 
it is like bidding you walk a path, across 
which long shadows fall, in which you are 
to stay, while others pass into the sun- 
shine. All I can reply is, if you strive to 
cultivate this power of enjoyment through 
the joys of others, you will find it is capable 
of a sweet and pleasant growth. Think, 
also, of the influence of cheerfulness, and 
since every day we leave some impression, 
either for good or evil, on those about us, 
the thought, that it may be one v/hich will 
stimulate others to seek a bright, healthful 
spirit, will surely prove a high motive urg- 
ing the cultivation of a brave, cheerful 
hopefulness, ready to lay aside every weight 
that depresses, and every burden that hin- 
ders. It is a duty, also, that faithfully fol- 
lowed leads on to thankfulness, and we are 
bidden to ^^give thanks for all things.'* Not 
an easy command to obey, since it includes 
giving thanks even for contradictions, and 
the crossing of our own will, and some- 
times too, for loneliness and sorrow. But 



^O REST A WHILE. 

think of the rest and calm that must enfold 
the soul that so loves God, it not only feels 
all He appoints is best for now, but catches 
also a glint of light that reaches so far up, 
it flashes down again like a sunbeam of 
Hope. Thanksgiving is, too, an especially 
sacred duty, for while " contentment, sym- 
pathy, patience, and cheerfulness may be 
said to be our duty toward our neighbors? 
submission and thanksgiving are duties 
toward God alone." And though to give 
thanks for everything is indeed a hard thing 
to do, it is nevertheless a " blessed and holy 
exercise," and one that lifts the soul so near 
to God, it is called in the Bible ^' a sacrifice 
well pleasing unto Him." It is, too, a step 
beyond prayer, for all it wants is to express 
how good the soul has found the Lord, 
hence it is just the utterance of love, it asks 
nothing. If our hearts were in full harmony 
with it, how many now unnumbered causes 
for thankfulness we would find ; truly, they 
strew our ** life- path" like daisies that star 

a meadow in June. Let us then, dear H , 

offer to God the sacrifice of thanksgiving, 
and call upon Him with praise, for " thank- 
ing and thanksgiving is a good way, and 



REST A WHILE. ^I 

if we follow it we will find rest for our 
souls." 

The contentment which follows every ef- 
fort after the virtues we have been ponder- 
ing, is another name for Rest, and what a 
dear and blessed thing a contented spirit 
is ! Contrast it with discontent if you want 
to realize its full blessedness. Observe, 
also, there are certain ingredients in con- 
tentment which need to be carefully noted, 
for only as you incorporate them into your 
heart will you really possess it. The most 
important is, that you regard discontent as 
sin^ and thus something you are not to par- 
don by the natural excuse, " I have so much 
to try me," for while it may be true that 
you have, still, if you believe God orders 
your lot in life, you must also believe it is 
the best lot for you, and the one that will 
most surely help you to become like Christ. 
Remember, also, contentment is not restless 
to know why God does this or that, neither 
does it ask why what look like blessings are 
withheld ; it just trusts Him. 

I have dwelt in detail on these different 
graces, because they all lead toward the 



^2 REST A WHILE. 

blessed condition of that Rest which /^//(^^e/j*, 
never precedes the experiences which develope 
them, and also because they teach that 

*' Rest is not quitting 
The busy career. 
Rest is the fitting 
Of self to one's sphere." 

And now let us resume our meditation on 
the " Rest a While " chapter. 

Rest a while ! — the significance of these 
words is plain, for by them we see that 
Christ allowed no idle-, unnecessary resting 
on the part of His disciples, neither will He 
on our part ; the time of rest from labor is 
brief, whether the labor be active or passive 
service. This we know from the record we 
are contemplating, for hardly had the echo 
of our Lord's words, " Rest a while," floated 
over the quiet waters of the Galilean sea to 
be caught up, and mingled in the ceaseless 
"echoes that roll from soul to soul,'' before, 
as the very next verse tells us, the *' people 
hastened on foot around the sea, and Jesus 
and His disciples went forth to heal their 
sick, and to proclaim the good news of the 
Kingdom of Heaven." 



REST A WHILE. ^3 

As they thus went, we fiod the twofold 
recognition of spirit and body, which marked 
Christ's call to His disciples, again brought 
into a prominent place. For His care for 
the merely physical, was never more tender- 
ly manifested than during that hour, when 
"He was moved with compassion," because 
the people hungered for material as well as 
spiritual nourishment. But — how supply 
them with bread in the desert ? — This is 
much the same question you asked about 
Rest, — and how often in seasons of darkness 
and trial do we repeat it, for we are so slow 
to believe His promises. And yet, — Did 
you ever in your need ask Him for spiritual 
food and come away hungry ? 

And in the matter of temporal blessings 
He also gives according to our needsy for 
sometimes, the refusal and disappointment 
of our requests, are the very answers to our 
prayers which most nourish our souls, — and 
— who can venture to decide "whether is 
greater, the disappointments of God's inter- 
dicts, or the disappointments of His per- 
missions " ? Certainly neither you nor I. 

You are familiar with the continuation of 
this story, which tells that the Lord bade 

2* 



34 



REST A WHILE. 



the people sit down in companies on the 
green grass, while He looked up to Heaven 
and "blessed the five loaves, and the two 
little fishes, and break, and divided, and 
gave them to the disciples to distribute 
among the people, who received as much 
as they every one wished.'* " For when God 
opens His Hand, He satisfies.*' 

The after part of this feeding of the five 
thousand is very rich in meaning. It con- 
sisted in the gathering up of the fragments 
that remained, that nothing be lost. And 
those multiplying fragments are as full of 
divine nourishment now, as they were* then. 
They are replete, also, with lessons for our 
daily life, containing as they- do a rebuke 
for unnecessary forethought, and faint- 
hearted anxiety, regarding the future, for 
they tell us, " God's Hand is not shortened." 
He will provide the sustenance we need, 
with as full and rich a bounty now, as that 
with which He fed His children of old. 

You must not doubt this, dear H , even 

if His Love be manifested to you by a scant 
measure of this world's plenty. And yet 
you want a full measure, — so do I, for that 
matter, for we are like 



REST A WHILE. ^j 

** Children who, impatient of the school, 
Despise the letters, longing for the scngs 
And stories that they catch the echo of." 

Well ! this is natural, and God never asks 
us to be anything but natural in feeling dis- 
appointment. At the same time He bids 
us submit to His Will, that we may grow in 
grace and patience, and thus become fitted 
for the Rest that remaineth. 
Meanwhile, 

*'The songs are written, but first we must learn to 

spell. 
The books will keep, but if we will not learn, 
We shall not read them when the right time comes, 
Or read them wrongly, and confusedly, 
And each hour has its lesson, and each life, 
And if we miss one life, we shall not find 
Its lesson in another ; rather go 
So much the less complete forever more, 
Still missing something that we cannot have.'* 

The truth held in these lines is emphasized 
by Christ's providing care for the faint and 
weary multitude. And we, like them, must 
do our part toward receiving His gifts, 
that nothing be lost, even if that part be 
only gathering up the fragments which are 
to be found in every life, however hidden 



36 



REST A WHILE. 



and shut away from the busy world it may 
be. For, thank God, no life, and no day, is 
so commonplace, but that it holds for the 
heart of faith fragments of His dear and 
precious gifts, which are better than all the 
treasures of this world. Sometimes, too, 
the quiet lives we call secluded, are the 
fullest and richest in their wide out-reach 
toward eternity ; for narrowness is within 
ourselves, not in our circumstances and sur- 
roundings. Be on the watch, then, lest you 
miss the blessings and pleasures to be found 
by the way, for they are like hedgerow 
blossoms, and grow often by dusty road- 
sides. Those that upspring from this med- 
itation are flowers of Rest, which never 
seem so sweet as during the dark days and 
hours, on which seem laid the burden and 
the mystery of the whole of life. It is at 
such times, when the weight, and the bur- 
den of living and doing are hard to bear, 
that Christ calls, " Come to Me, weary and 
heavy-laden one, I will give you Rest." — • 
And that Rest ! How tell it ? Truly, it is 
soothing as a mother's kiss. To realize it, 
we need to ask Him to make us like Him- 
self, for, refreshed by communion with Him, 



REST A WHILE. 



37 



we find comfort in sorrow, and light in dark- 
ness. And the mystery of Rest, which like 
" the rose-leaf in the rose,'' lies folded in the 
heart of trouble, becomes an open secret, 
and we learn that life can be transfigured 
through sorrow, as well as through joy. 
Surely this knowledge is Bread of Life for 
the soul^ while for the heart there is no lack, 
for 

** If you scour the fields you'll find 

Thyme, or mint, or clover, 
Something to a willing mind 

God will still discover." 

Before we leave this meditation, I would 
fain linger a moment, to bid you observe 
how by His lesson of care, — even of frag- 
ments, Christ enforced the duty of prov- 
ident regard for material things, showing 
that in His sight nothing is insignificant 
enough to warrant waste. Observe, also, 
He teaches the blessings of the present are 
not to be neglected by reaching out after 
something either future or imaginary. For 
to us all belong present duties, to be "gath- 
ered up," and if we gather them in depend- 
ence on Him, they will each contain a bless- 
ing, though it be only a fragment, perchance 



33 



REST A WHILE. 



naught more than a Hope, like " a cloud big 
as a man's hand." This you will find if 
trustfully you seek, remembering, 

** Humble love, 
And not proud reason, keeps the door of Heaven ; 
Love finds admission when reason fails." 

Then be content to 

** Suffer and love, love best and suffer long, 
And love through all, and at the last be strong. 

Thou shalt need all the strength that God can give, 
Simply to live, my friend, simply to live ! " 

While this love leads to restful trust in 
Christ, as our Redeemer and Provider, the 
Rest of trust is not the only encompassing 
of the Christian's life. If it were, we would 
never step beyond the green pastures, to 
the sterner following of discipleship, that 
leads to the Cross. And it is there we learn 
the profoundest lessons of His Love. For 
it is when we kneel within its shadow, 
clasping it by faith, that we know as at no 
other time, how the Everlasting Father 
bends in sympathy toward us, with a great 
compassion, that only the Cross can meas- 



REST A WHILE. ^g 

ure. Kneeling there, dear H , you will 

find it grows easier to tell God all about 
your trouble. — But the sorrow which be- 
longs to such supreme hours of grief, is not 
for me to touch by words ; for however 
warm and tender love may be, it stands 
aside before such an experience. Only one 
Friend is intimate enough to enter the 
Holy of Holies of this deepest sorrow, and 
He is the Friend, closer than a brother, — 
and 

*' His knowledge of us makes His pity more deep/' 

just as 

" Our knowledge of Him bids us trust while we 
weep." 

And the Rest there is in Trust, only the 
weary and heavy-laden know ! The story 
of Ruth helps to make this plain, for it so 
outlines our experience in times of trouble* 
Truly it is like a pillow of rest ; for as the 
less symbolizes the greater, the lower the 
higher, so the human interprets the divine, 
and as we read how sorrow served to 
strengthen and deepen Ruth's power of love, 
does not the record emblem the increase of 



40 REST A WHILE. 

our love toward the Heavenly Father, even 
when sorrow presses most heavily ? You 
remember when first she knew her mother- 
in-law, in the bright, glad days, she called 
her "Naomi'' — the "pleasant one"; but 
afterward, when the trouble came, she knew 
her as " Marah," — "bitterness." And yet, 
it was during that after-time, that Ruth 
*^ clave unto her." It was then she said : 
"Entreat me not to leave thee." Tell me, 
is it thus you pray to your Father in Heav- 
en now, when He is leading you by a rough 
way? If it is, just as surely as the sun 
shines behind the clouds, by faith you may 
hear His tender answer, " Fear thou not, 
for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I 
am thy God ; I will strengthen thee ; yea, 
I will help thee ; yea, I *will uphold thee 
with the right hand of My righteousness " 
(Isaiah xli. lo). 

And with such an Upholding, you will 
find Rest unto your soul. — And "Rest is 
good" (Gen. xlix. 15). 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 



41 



** Then spake Jesus, saying : * 1 am the Light of the 
world ; he that folioweth Me shall not walk in dark- 
ness, but shall have the Light of Life.' " — John viii. 12. 

Come, blissful Light ! O come and fill 
In all Thy faithful, heart and will, 
And make our inward fervor glow. 
. . . . O let Thy Light upon us rise." 

**We were sometime darkness, but now are we 
Light in the Lord"; let us then "walk as children of 
Light."— Eph. v. 8. 



42 



II. 

CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 

" T ET your light so shine before men, 

1 J that they may see your good works, 

and glorify your Father which is in Heav- 
en.** I do not know of any of our Saviour's 
commands more direct than this, in its en- 
forcement of duty, and that we may make 
no mistakes in our efforts to obey it, Christ 
Himself tells us the way, saying : " I am the 
Light of the world ; he that foUoweth Me 
shall not walk in darkness." Thus you see, 

dear H , the condition of walking as a 

child of Light depends upon your following 
and keeping close enough to Christ, for the 
Light of His presence to illumine your dark- 
ness with a refulgence, that can flood even 
your poor works with a radiance, that will 
enable them to "glorify God." 

That we may fully enter into the meaning 
of a service which possesseth this power of 

(43) 



44 REST A WHILE. 

radiation, we will meditate to-day on Light, 
in its twofold relation to our souls. First, 
as revealed by the indwelling spirit of 
Light — "Christ in us the hope of glory" — 
and then, as manifested by our walking as 
Children of Light, amid the dark and 
dreary ways of this world. A place, as 
we know, full of the darkening influences 
of ignorance, and sin, and their out- 
growth of evil deeds, and gloomy fore- 
bodings, among which we need not linger, 
since our thoughts are to centre on that 
beautiful, blessed, wonderful thing. Light ! 
Think what it does for the world ! Think 
how a mere flash of it, like a smile of love, 
can brighten a dark place ! How mists and 
sickly miasma vanish before its renovating 
power, and how like a nurse it is in its ten- 
der ministry to trees, plants, flowers, and all 
growing things, wooing them into bud and 
blossom. Think, too, how Light throws a 
mantle of beauty over all nature, begin- 
ning with the first sunbeam that kisses the 
mountain peaks at dawn, and continuing in 
a succession of varied beauty, till the last 
silvery gleam of midnight's moonshine falls 
like a caress over land and sea. And then, 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. ^h 

after a pause in that mysterious place where 
darkness and light meet, how it glides forth 
again, silently as dew falls, and another 
day dawns, freighted with its " twelve-hour 
treasures," and " sunshine minutes/* that 

" God lends to leaven 
What were all earth else, with a yk^/<?/ heaven." 

These thoughts of the manifold, mighty 
power of Light, add such a depth of mean- 
ing to Christ's use of it as a type of Chris- 
tian influence. But before we seek the sug- 
gestions the metaphors contain, we will 
consider our Lord's declaration of Himself, 
as the ^* Light of the world.'* I am so glad 
the Gospel record tells us just where, and 
when, Christ made this announcement, for 
the being able to vividly picture His sur- 
roundings, and the circumstances attending 
His special manifestations either by mira- 
cles, or uttered words, so helps to make His 
teachings real and life-giving. In this in- 
stance it requires but little imagination to 
portray the scene, for you remember it oc- 
curred during the Feast of Tabernacles, ob- 
served by the Jews in joyful and grateful 
commemoration of the Exodus and forty 



46 REST A WHILE. 

years' wilderness pilgrimage. A period 
marked for them by repeated evidences of 
God's deliverance, support, and guidance. 
As the multitude assembled to render thanks 
and praise for these bygone mercies, the hills 
round about Jerusalem were bathed in the 
glow of approaching dawn, their summits 
edged with fleeces of cloud, waiting to be kin- 
dled into rosy radiance by beams from the 
rising sun, a light all unlike that which shone 
from the two golden lamps in the courts 
of the Temple, and yet they cast a bright- 
ness over every part of the Holy City, and 
as far even as the green booths, which dotted 
the hill slopes, and where during the cele- 
bration of the Feast, rich and poor, learned 
and unlearned, high and low, met together 
in token of spiritual harmony. Among that 
vast company doubtless there were many 
who had forgotten the significance of the 
colossal lamps, whose clear flames burned 
with so brilliant and widely-diffused lustre. 
But the 7neaning was there^ and despite the 
heedless, there were others who remembered 
it, and who remembered, too, that it referred 
not only to God's former mercies to His 
chosen people, but also to His designs for 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. ^y 

the Future. And " while the water poured 
out at this Feast of Tabernacles, reminded 
these earnest and devout ones of the Rock 
in the wilderness, the brilliant Light re- 
minded of the guiding Pillar of Fire. They 
were emblems, too, that spoke of the Foun- 
tain which should pour forth its streams at 
the Messiah's coming, and of the promised 
Light which was to shine forth of God, out 
of Zion.'* These memories and hopes were 
naturally strongest toward the close of the 
gorgeous illumination, just before the lamps 
were removed. And as though He divined 
the emotions stirred by this linking of the 
past with the future, it was the time our 
Lord chose for saying : " I am the Light of 
the world.'* And though He had been 
teaching the people since the first gray 
break of day, according to the opinion of 
more than one learned Father of church 
history, we may believe, these words of 
wondrous spiritual illumining were uttered, 
" at the minute, when the rays of the just 
risen sun were lighting up the gold and 
marble magnificence of the Temple, and 
thus emphasizing and giving voice, as it 
were, to the glorious truth proclaimed by 



48 REST A WHILE. 

Christ ; for the very sunbeams seemed to 
say : * See how the light of day, in one brief 
minute, can outshine in brightness, and out- 
run in distance, the most brilliant of man's 
illuminations, and what God's sunshine is 
to the earth, that, and more, oh, so much 
more, is the power of this Sun of Righteous- 
ness, whose beams can kindle light in the 
darkest, most sinful places of this world/ '* 
'^ I am the Light of the world." " As we 
linger over the phrase, thoughts of unity, of 
majesty, of revelation, of insight, of growth, 
of progress, crowd in upon us. We seem 
to see how that which had faded away from 
the eyes of man came back with undying 
splendor ; how that which had been once 
for the guidance and solace of a single race, 
was given at last for the illumination of 
mankind ; how that which had been but a 
manifestation of God, was in the fullness of 
time a personal God, the Word made flesh 
and dwelling among us J' Yes, " among us," 
that is a promise for you, and for me, dear 

H . Yet, without this revelation of 

Christ as the Light of the World, we would 
be unable to claim it, for without Light we 
could not have the ** Seeing Eye," able to 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 40 

behold by faith, the Saviour, and which 
shows us also our sinfulness and far- 
wandering from Him with a clearness 
which makes us feel like exclaiming with 
Job : " Now mine eye seeth Thee, I abhor 
myself.'* This sight of Christ, and of self, 
is something that would indeed discourage 
the bravest heart, were it not for the knowl- 
edge that being discouraged because of un- 
likeness to Christ, is, in a certain way, like 
venturing to set a limit to the transforming 
power of His grace; something we do every 
time we yield to looking at self, rather than 
at Him, the Divine Illuminator of the path 
we are to tread, as we strive to obey His 
command to let " our light shine before 
men/' This command has a special voice 
for the pride in our hearts that needs hum- 
bling, as well as for the false humility that 
needs to be repressed in its expression of 
self-deprecation. For, observe, there is no 
word of " You " in this command ; it reads, 
Let, not '' you^'' but ^' your " light shine be- 
fore men that they may see " nof you/* but 
''your good works," and glorify " not you,'' 
but ''^ your Father which is in Heaven." If 
you think of the difference between '' us " 

3 



CO REST A WHILE. 

and ^' ours '' you will understand this, and 
why, when we read "ye are the light/' it 
need give rise to no thought of self-import- 
ance and brilliancy as centered in us, for 
our light is only because '^ God has shined 
in our hearts, to give the light of the knowl- 
edge of the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ '' (2 Cor. iv. 6, 7). And while to 
some extent all God's children receive this 
Light in the same general way, it is never- 
theless like most of our Heavenly Father's 
gifts, two-fold, and though we thus share it, 
there are special rays which belong to each 
individual Christian, as an especial posses- 
sion given by " Him who made alike great 
minds and little minds," and saw "a use for 
each/' for 

** Never was so plain a truth, 
As that God drops His seed of Holy flame 
Just where He will.'* 

But this in no way interferes with the 
hand-in-hand companionship of those two 
elements, which belong to all Christian 
growth, I mean ability and responsibility. 
They differ according to the capacity of 
different souls, for, as I said before, each 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 5 1 

has a separate radiance and power of shin- 
ing, be it much or little, just as each drop 
of the midsummer shower holds a ray of 
light that is all its own, whether it be dull 
indigo, modest violet, royal red, or golden 
yellow. If it were not for this individual 
manifestation of the Light of Life in each 
soul, we would be like sheep known to our 
Shepherd only as members of one vast 
nameless flock. With it our relation to our 
Saviour is so close and intimate, even though 
we be the weakest lamb in His fold, we will 
neither be forgotten nor overlooked. And 
our place in the Light of His Love is as sure 
as the place of the twinkling star in the 
Heavens above, where night after night it 
glows like a gem, for when clouds hide it 
from us we know it is still shining in un- 
dimmed lustre. It is through this special 
union between the Redeemer and the re- 
deemed that we each receive our own par- 
ticular portion of Heavenly help for " every 
time of need,'* and surely that means for all 
time ! Here again we find a difference in 
God's gifts, and what for my requirements 
may be full measure, for yours may be 
scant. Thus it is that God in training His 



52 



REST A WHILE. 



children disciplines each according to what 
trial means to each, and not by comparison 
with other people's trials, which may be 
more or less, for it is not some one else's 
trial that is to perfect you, but your own, 
hence the grace and strength sufficient to 
meet it is an individual supply ^' for thee'' 
Observe also the lesson of charity in our 
judgments of others, taught us by this char- 
acterizing by God of individuals, for in its 
light we see we each have a right to our 
own mental and spiritual thoughts and 
opinions, and 

**Hans must not burn Kant's house above his head, 
Because he cannot understand Kant's books, 
And still less must Hans' pastor burn Kant's self, 
Because Kant understands some books too well. 
But enough — God will estimate 
Success some day : and in the meantime you ! " 

Another important thing to notice in con- 
nection with the shining of spiritual light in 
the soul, is that it is not before but "after 
we are illuminated '* that we are to " endure 
the great fight of affliction." A prospect 
which implies the testing of many traits in 
our characters, and which will demand much J 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 



S3 



*' pruning"; so much, perhaps, that the axe 
will need to be laid at the very root of our 
self-will and self-love. But though this be 
a hard ordeal. Heavenly Light has a ray of 
comfort and support for each trial-test, even 
the sharpest ; for 

**Over all our tears God's rainbow bends." 

Nature is constantly revealing this, by 
the metaphor of the pure white light of the 
sun, which is reflected in so many varied 
colors from different natural objects. How 
this illustration expands when we apply it 
to the different rays of spiritual radiance, 
that we may reflect from letting our light 
shine before men. For influence is some- 
thing so far-reaching and penetrating, and 
existence becomes so wonderful and sacred, 
when we remember our lives may touch and 
bless other lives from whom outwardly we 
seem separated, as completely as though the 
separation were caused by what we call 
death. More completely, I sometimes think, 
for does the passing of the mortal on to the 
immortal really separate loving souls ? — 
Truly, I believe not, for while 



54 



REST A WHILE. 



** In life our absent friend is far away ; 
Death may bring our friend exceeding near, 
Show him familiar faces long so dear 
And lead him back in reach of words, we say. 
He only cannot utter yea or nay 
In any voice accustomed to our ear ; 
He only cannot make his face appear 
And turn the sun back on our shadowed day. 
The dead may be around us, dear and dead ; 
The unforgotten dearest dead may be 
Watching us, with unslumbering eye and heart, 
Brimful of words which cannot yet be said, 
Brimful of knowledge they may not impart, 
Brimful of love for you and love for me." 

Join to these lines, dear H , the truth 

held in George Eliot's words — for that will 
also whisper to you how near are the de- 
parted — " Our dead are never dead to us," 
thus she writes, "until we have forgotten 
them." 

We have wandered from my statement, 
that the various experiences attendant on 
progress in the Christian life, each reflect a 
different virtue. You ask me to resume the 
thought, by mentioning some of the graces 
that shine with a distinctness clear as the 
brightness of the prismatic colors. I will 
only outline a few, for they are many of 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. ct 

them the very attributes described in our 
meditation on " Rest a While.'* I begin 
with the experience of sorrow, though you 
hardly need to be told its reflection is the 
tender, peaceful glow of submission. You 
know, too, how the sorely tempted, who do 
not yield, reflect in their lives, the bright 
shining light of the strong purpose called 
resistance ; and those who are tested by 
prosperity, meet it with the gentle spiritual 
glow of humility; while the naturally weak, 
acquire the light of a strength not their 
own. But I will not lengthen this list, for 
all we need from it is the reminder, that we 
each should strive to shine by some precious 
individual spiritual grace, which is as much 
a part of us as our voice, or our smile. And 
yet, though this striving to shine in the 
Light of God is our part, and one which we 
must earnestly seek to fulfil, it is equally 
true, that in all our light-giving, we are but 
lamps for God's Light to shine from ; we 
can only reflect the light which emanates 
from Him; without that reflection, we are 
like the gray dense masses of vapory clouds 
that heap high above the horizon of a mid- 
summer morning. But if those rain-clouds 



56 



REST A WHILE. 



obey the beckoning rays of the rising sun, 
and roll zenith-ward till they reach the place 
from whence their flood-gates open, you 
know how they can send down to earth show- 
ers of blessings, just as we dispense bless- 
ings on all around us, if, like the clouds, 
we obey the order of Light, and give forth 
that which we have received, because God 
holds us, as He holds them, in the "hollow 
of His Hand.'* Held there^ it takes but one 
ray from the Sun of Righteousness to trans- 
form rain-drops into the bow of promise, 
even as the faintest beam of Heavenly Love 
reflected on the tears we shed, can trans- 
form them into smiles. God grant we may 

be thus held, dear H , and may realize 

what such a holding means ! 

Certainly, the mere thought of it, solves 
all questions, regarding our ability to give 
light, and I repeat, how sacred this knowl- 
edge renders ability and responsibility, and 
how through it, we know even as a dingy 
pane of glass can send a reflection far oiit 
into the darkness, so our lives, however 
lowly they may be, can shine with a radi- 
ance forceful enough to illumine other lives, 
that may be as much wider and fuller than 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 



57 



ours, as a river is wider and fuller than a 
wayside brooklet. Wonderful as this is, we 
know it to be true, for a spark can kindle a 
flame ! It is through this subtle power of 
influence, that our lives are prolonged and 
projected, as it were, through, and into, the 
lives of future generations. This is a thought 
so solemn, we tremble as we approach it, 
though not with fear, so much as Vv^ith a 
reverence, like that Moses felt, when brought 
into the presence of the great possibilities 
of his future, he " drew near, and yet bowed 
down,'* for awe-inspiring as the recognition 
of this boundlessness of influence is, it is 
also grand and life-ennobling to remember, 
that through it, we may be working in this 
world years and years after we have left it 
for the other and Better Land. I suppose 
the older we grow the more we will under- 
stand this, for do you not think in one sense 
our prospect is limited by retrospection ? 
We know, to a little child, the future, judg- 
ing from the past, is all indefinite, while to 
the growing youth, it begins to be more 
defined, till by the time life's meridian is 
reached, it has become something very real. 
What, then, must it be to the aged ? What 
3* 



5 8 REST A WHILE. 

must eternity before seem, when there is 
well-nigh an eternity behind, in which it is 
reflected ? — an eternity, out of which, must 
surely come " interpretations/' 

Looking at life thus we hardly need to 
ask, " Will we grow in eternity ? " Why, 
how can we help it, when even now beneath 
our feet, we feel the past like a mountain, 
that has grown with our every increasing 
year, lifting us up all the time into higher 
outlooks and broader visions ? But this 
bright hope of ever continuing growth 
must not make us forget, that the posses- 
sion of ability^ does not necessarily — even 
though it ought to — imply our recognition 
of responsibility, which is something that 
increases with every added manifestation of 
God-given ability, something, also, which 
is not limited by what we have, for respon- 
sibility includes what we might have. Hence 
we must remember we will be called to give 
account not only for the gifts which we have 
opened the door of our hearts to welcome, 
but for those, too, which have knocked and 
been refused admittance. The fact of our 
refusal becomes doubly sad w^hen we reflect 
how many of God's richest gifts are offered 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. 



59 



us in trust, and composed not only of bless- 
ings for our own souls, but of blessings for 
the hearts of those dear to us. The thought 
of our dear ones, leads me to remind you, 
that while, as I said, the power and extent 
of influence is limitless, we are nevertheless 
most wont to let our light shine on those 
nearest to us. This greatly exalts the high 
service of homely, daily life, making it a 
sacred mission, in which " the Lord our God 
is with us,*' and He appoints the place for 
us to shine ; thus we know it to be the right 
place, however rough and toilsome it may 
be. — And are not most of these stumbling- 
places we encounter in our own hearts, 
rather than in God*s dealing with us ? And 
at the darkest times, have you never noticed 
hov/ many odds and ends of happiness are 
to be found, if one is on the lookout for 
them ? So many, in truth, were they woven 
into a whole, think what a space they would 
cover in life's story ! But it is time for us 
to consider the brief word ^V<?/," for it fills 
a very important niche in the command we 
are pondering, and the use of it clearly re- 
veals that light — the poets to the contrary 
— is something that can be hid. Ah ! so 



6o REST A WHILE. 

completely, when it is spiritual light, for, 
alas, even those who are in heart Christians, 
sometimes are very like dark-lanterns, and 
they go on their way satisfied, because in 
their souls the light is lit, though it is only 
a smouldering, feeble flame that burns with- 
out shining, and the one is not enough with- 
out the other. This is why ^* good works" 
are enjoined in the command to let our light 
shine, they being the way by which we are 
to ^^ glorify God." The subject of "good 
works " has called forth much discussion at 
one time and another, but what our Lord 
Christ meant by them, you will straightway 
perceive, if you read carefully and prayer- 
fully His Sermon on the Mount. For the 
Blessings therein enumerated are formed of 
rays which emanate from Him, the Great 
Light, and which, focused on our deeds, 
make them the glowing good works we are 
to let shine before men. This explains the 
blending in the Beatitudes of active and 
passive service, and why, in the shining of 
the true, earnest Christian's good works, we 
always observe this blessed linking of the 
ministry rendered by word, hand, and what 
may be termed material aid, with the still 



CHILDREN OF LIGHT. gj 

more powerful ministry which shines forth 
from the spiritual graces. I mean by spirit- 
ual graces the love which softens hardness ; 
the generosity which conquers meanness ; 
the long-suffering which soothes irritability; 
the cheerfulness which rises above depres- 
sion ; the truth w^hich vanquishes deceit 
and falsehood ; and the faith which ripens 
into "the peaceable fruits of righteousness.'' 
And now, as we draw near to the end of 
this meditation on Light, do you ask : 
"What practical result upsprings from our 
ponderings ? " Our Saviour's words, that 
we may " glorify God," is one reply ; an- 
other is, that we may be helped to live so 
that men may see by our shining what it 
means to have in the soul, the Light of Life. 
This is something you can only have, dear 

H , as you look from self to Christ, " to 

be made patient with His patience ; active 
with His activity; loving with His love"; 
while you ask : not, " What can I do ? " but, 
"What cannot He do ? " If thus you look 
unto Him, and wait upon His strength, 
which is made perfect in weakness, His 
brightness will become the Light of your 
darkness, and bathed in its effulgent beams, 



62 REST A WHILE. 

your joys will become holy and your sor- 
rows calmed, for 

— '' it is not life upon thy life to live, 
But to grow fixed with deeper roots on Him, 
And when the sun and shower their bounties give, 
To send out thick-leaved limbs, a fruitful tree, 
Whose green head meets the eye for many a milco" 



THE SEEING EYE. 



63 



•* The Seeing Eye the Lord hath made."— Pro v. xx. 

21. 

** The Eye of your understanding." — Eph i. i8. 

And though 
** God dwelleth in a light far out of human ken, 

Become thyself that light, and thou wilt see Him 

then." 

For it is written, 

"And they shall see His face." — Rev. xxii. 4. 



64 



III. 

THE SEEING EYE. 

OUR yesterday's meditation on Light 
naturally suggests thoughts of the 
" Seeing Eye/* It is referred to so often in 
the Bible, it has become a familiar meta- 
phor of spiritual discernment between 
good and evil ; as well as of the blessed 
on-reach of "hopes which by faith enter 
within the veil, whither the forerunner is 
for us entered — even Jesus/' As we ponder 
this type, we must be on the watch, lest we 
fail to notice some of the many meanings 
that belong to it, like leaves on a leaf-laden 
tree-bough, for its frequent use causes a 
lack of freshness, which will be apt to blur 
our perceptions of its spiritual significance. 
In this, spiritual and purely intellectual 
knowledge are alike ; and you know how, 
in our acquirement of the latter, we are 
wont to " feel its real animating power, 

(65) 



66 REST A WHILE. 

only at the minute of its first being re- 
ceived, when it fills us with wonder and 
awe/' But while we may miss the zest of 
new discoveries in our search, we always 
possess "something which we cannot know 
to the full ; always we may be going on to 
know. This is the necessary condition of 
a finite creature, with divinely rooted and 
divinely directed intelligence.'* And it will 
not fail to help us in this meditation on the 
" Soul's Eye," the possession of which has 
been the universal inheritance of humanity, 
since the hour when first we find it referred 
to in Gen. iii. 5, where we are told : '^ Your 
eyes shall be opened and ye shall know 
good and evil." As we seek among the 
pages of the Holy Book for references 
which explain this power of the eye, we 
shall find it much like walking a forest 
path, where deep shadows and soft lights 
surround us with their mysterious and in- 
finite suggestions, for our capacity of spirit- 
ual sight, while we continue captives in the 
prison-house of mortality, must always be 
bounded by mystery. But though our vis- 
ion be thus restricted, there is no question 
of its power to behold distinctly the differ- 



I 



THE SEEING EYE. 67 

ence between right and wrong, and it is able, 
also, to cleariy distinguish which of these 
two master powers in the soul it chooses 
to serve. This being plain, what matter if 
mortal sight reveals our mortal limitations? 
— And yet, do you not think the dread of 
what we call death, comes in a great meas- 
ure from our dislike of beholding the limi- 
tations of earthly life, which are drawn by 
a closely-defined horizon line ? If it does, 
all the more need is there for us to remem- 
ber, when we pass beyond that line, which 
now divides us from the other shore, the 
blessed Hereafter will give us that which 
this world cannot, for here 

'* In vain we long for larger view, 
Which loftier heights impart ; 
The limits of our life refuse 
The wishes of our hearts. 

** Where'er one mystery is revealed, 
Into the foreground brought, 
Another by its form concealed 
Starts up to baffle thought. 

** While here the wisest sage must live 
By faith, and not by sight, 
For duty only, Heaven will give 
Enough of guiding light. 



68 REST A WHILE. 

** But when at last, from life's dark land 
We climb Heaven's heights serene, 
All light upon the hills of God 
In God's light shall be seen. 

*' All kingdoms of the earth shall then 
To lustrous eyes be shown, 
And dwelling in the purer air 

We'll know, even as we are known.'* 

Meanwhile, as we wait for this glorious 
seeing, — Eternity, — that other name for the 
Future, — is all the time beckoning to us from 
out the dawning of coming things, good, 
grand, and beautiful. And thus, as this life 
becomes too narrow for our increasing de- 
sire to do^ and to be, let us strive to trans- 
plant our desires heavenward, where we 
know they will be satisfied, for There " our 
eyes shall behold the King in His beauty, 
they shall behold the Land that is very far 
off (Isa. xxxiii. 17). And, there will be no 
disappointed hopes There ; no flickering of 
the light of faith ; for Christ Himself shall 
give us the bright and *^ Morning Star," as 
our peculiar possession ; and He will ap- 
point the very place we are to keep relative- 
ly to it in that eternal dawn ! Yes, it will 
always be morning there, for *^ there shall 



THE SEEING EYE. 69 

be no night, and we will need no candle, 
neither light of the sun, for the Lord God 
giveth light*' (Rev. ii. 5). 

By way of a thought parenthesis, let us 
pause a minute, while we think of the 
wonders God has provided to make glad 
our soul's eye, even in this world. And yet, 
they are as nothing before the greater 
wonders He has provided for the Heavenly 
Home. The crown of them all, that promise 
which only the pure in heart can claim, those 
blessed ones, who shall see God. Before the 
thought of that seeing, how earth's beauty 
grows dim, just as the colors spread on an 
artist's palette, look pale and lifeless, when 
compared with the glory of sunset and the 
marvel of sunrise. While we know this, we 
know, too, though our imagination be rich 
and full, " eye hath not seen, ear hath not 
heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
of man, to conceive the things which God 
hath prepared for them that love Him." 
Will you and I behold those Heavenly 

wonders, dear H ? Are we numbered 

among those who love God ? ^^ Love — such 
a little word," but think of all it holds, 
think of the Hereafter ! 



yo REST A WHILE. 

** But words may not tell of the vision of peace, 
With its worshipful seeming, its marvellous fires, 

Where the soul is at large, where its sorrows all cease, 
And the gift has outbidden the boldest desires." 

And now let us turn from these bright 
hopes of Heavenly Seeing, while we follow, 
as recorded in the Old and New Testaments, 
the sights promised the seeing eye for this 
present time. We will find them in well- 
nigh every case accentuated by practical 
suggestions for our daily life, that will 
greatly aid us, if, as we behold them, we 
also remember it is a very different thing to 
" see our calling,** and to " walk worthy of 
it.'' And yet, that is the object for which 
the seeing eye is given us. The verse from 
Genesis, already quoted, is the first intima- 
tion we find of this spiritual possession, and 
it is followed by a wide stretch of chapters 
which contain no allusion to this soul-sight. 
But it meets us again when we come to 
Numb, xxiv. 3, 15, and the thoughts therein 
suggested, run so parallel with the Chris- 
tian's experience in beholding the Lord, we 
will dwell on them in detail. Something in 
this brief Leaflet we will be unable to do 
with the other examples of the subject we 



THE SEEING EYE. 



71 



may touch in passing. And just here, I 
bid you remember, there are also many 
references to it we must leave quite un- 
noticed. 

In the special spiritual sight which we 
will now consider, what Balaam, " the man 
whose eyes were opened, saw in the vision 
of the Almighty," we find pictured in the 
words : " How goodly are thy tents, O 
Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel ! as the 
valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by 
the river-side, as the trees of lign aloes 
which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar 
trees beside the waters." Observe, thus far 
this parable seeing, has to do with what to 
Balaam was the world of nature, and the 
present. Later on, " his eyes still being 
opened," his soul's vision passed beyond 
the confines of tUis world, and he exclaimed: 
^' I shall see Him, but not now ; I shall be- 
hold Him, but not nigh ; there shall come a 
star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise 
out of Israel." 

Do you ask, where I find in these words a 
parallel between the vision of the old-time 
seer and the sight God will grant you, if in 
faith you pray, '^ Open Thou mine eyes, that 



^2 REST A WHILE. 

I may behold wondrous things out of Thy 
law?" (Ps. cxix. i8). 

My reply demands a brief digression ; it 
is also involved with the state of your own 
mind, for there is no escape from the law, 
that " we must be receptive before we can 
be productive." Thus, before you can per- 
ceive the real inner meaning of either the 
parables or parallels by which Bible truth 
corresponds with your own experience, their 
vital forces need to enter and enrich your 
soul. When this has happened, they will 
stretch before you like meadows starred 
with flowers, and you will know in a certain 
way what is meant by a sight of the Lord, 
even while you are a sojourner on this 
earth. 

You will understand, also, how the 

** Toppling crags of duty scaled 
Are close upon the shining table-lands, 
To which our God Himself is moon and sun." 

These lines indicate that spiritual seeing 
is in proportion to the "crags of duty 
scaled." And sometimes the faith needful 
for this uphill climb requires such a hard 
struggle it may well be typified by the 



THE SEEING EYE. 



73 



" works without which faith is dead." Yes, 
if you are to see you must seek^ for " Prayer 
and a holy life must be yours if you would 
see your Maker. In prayer you grasp the 
golden key of the gate of Eden ; by a holy 
life you may walk in something more than 
fancy among its seraph choirs.*' This ex- 
tract from Canon Farrar, is an echo of the 
truth proclaimed that long-ago day when 
man first tasted of the Tree of Knowledge ; 
and, as since then, power to behold good, 
has also implied power to behold evil, our 
great care must be to become so absorbed 
in contemplation of the lofty and noble, the 
true and beautiful, evil, for want of room, 
cannot find a lodging place either in our 
heart or mind. To accomplish this, our 
chief desire must be for ^^ holiness, without 
which we can neither see the Lord nor ob- 
tain the views of goodness and beauty which 
are reflected through His Love." Such a 
precious seeing ! and our Saviour tells how 
we may secure it, for He said : ^^ I am the 
Way." Follow Christ, then, if you would 
see^ and your every increase of knowledge 
of Him will result in a fuller blessedness of 
spiritual vision. Strive, also, not only to 
4 



74 



REST A WHILE. 



know more of Him, but to realize more in- 
tensely that you do thus know. This re- 
quires that you define to your own mind 
what you have, and v/hat you are^ and what 
you ought to be, through this union with 
Christ, which St. Paul terms " our Heavenly 
calling,'' . . . . ^^ the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus." To answer these questions 
you will need to probe to the very depth of 
your spiritual life. But heart-searching as 
they are, they need cause no disquietude, 
if, as you ask them, you are abiding in 
Christ, for His " I in you, and ye in Me," 
blots out the solitariness and fear which, 
had you to encounter them alone, might 
well alarm you, but that "in Christ" can 
tranquillize fears in a moment. To attain 
this sense of " inner calm," Christ must be 
distinct to your mental and spiritual eye. 
That He may be thus discerned, strive to 
unite in one complete idea. Love, Mercy, 
Justice, Law, Power, and Greatness ; for 
only thus can you obtain the symm.etry in 
your conception of Him that will result in 
symmetry in your own life. I often wonder 
if one reason so many remain strangers to 
the Lord, is because they are not drawn to 



THE SEEING EYE. 



75 



a Christ of their own conception, and they 
know nothing of the Christ. I wonder, too, 
is not this lack of real sight one cause of 
the lack of Christian charity among so 
many who rank under different religious 
sects. For surely, a true sight of the Christ 
would draw sects together, and promote 
that Love which upsprings from seeing in 
different dogmas, different sides of the same 
faith in substance. 

You tell me, these thoughts of Christ, and 
His indwelling in the soul, thus opening 
blind eyes to His Love, and the revelation 
of it we find through our love for others, 
and theirs for us, as well as by the ministry 
of Nature, are beautiful and attractive; but 
neither by personal experience nor feeling 
do you respond to them in an appropriating 
way. All the more reason, then, I reply, for 
you to thank God that your " Heavenly 
calling " is not affected by your feelings. 
Indeed, it is something apart from your 
emotional life, though not from your duty; 
for while " with God it is a matter oi fact, it 
is purely a matter of faith with you." And 
faith is a duty, and something more, bless- 



y6 REST A WHILE. 

edly more ; for Christ is the object of faith, 
and He is a Rock sure and steadfast, even 
though feelings change like the tide. Hence, 
despite these " shifting sensations,'* if by 
faith you are " in Christ," you can rest 
assured, in Him, you are complete, though 
in yourself all incomplete.— When before 
this sense of your own unworthiness, you 
feel like the ^^ bruised reed, and the smok- 
ing flax,*' be comforted, He has promised 
He will neither break the reed nor quench 
the flax. Remember, too, "it is not with 
you God is satisfied, but with your Redeem- 
er. However you may be feeling at this 
present moment, it is your Friend, your 
Surety, not you, that meets the eye of God.*' 
Ah! if you can but thus see yourself "in 
Christ,** the sight will be so blessed, the 
gladness of it will brighten your every ex- 
perience, like flowers which greet your every 
advancing footstep when you walk amid 
the violet patches of spring, or the daisy 
fields of summer. How can you obtain 
this blessedness ? — You will know, if hence- 
forth you look " unto Jesus,** and thus away 
from self and your own feelings. 

Yes, dear, you wi// Mow, if, as I said, 



THE SEEING EYE. 



77 



" you look from your standing in Christ 
to Christ Himself; from your high calling 
to the God who calleth you higher ; from 
the Bible to the Author of it; from worship 
to the Object worshipped; from service to 
the Master whom you serve; from heavenly 
gifts to the heavenly Giver ; from the grace 
of God to the God of all grace. Look, also, 
from the sorrows of the way to the Light 
that shines above. Look from the joys of 
your God to the God of your joys; and, 
above all, look to the Lord Jesus, in whom 
you will see the face and learn the charac- 
ter of the Father.'* This hope of beholding 
^ the Father ' leads us to the analogy which 
I said we would seek between our own now- 
a-day experience, and that of God's chil- 
dren of old ; they run side by side amid rich 
pasture- lands of His love, bounty, and 
beauty, and Nature is full of symbols illus- 
trating this. By Nature, I mean " the sum 
total of God's works and laws," and " the love 
and study of the works of Nature; this walk- 
ing through the world with loving and open 
eyes, is one of the very best aids to faith, and 
one of the very simplest sources of happi- 
ness." As we thus walk with Balaam's vision 



y8 REST A WHILE. 

for our guide, we will find it a pleasant path, 
on either side encompassed with sugges- 
tions in which the objects of Nature are 
linked with special metaphors that contain 
helpful and hopeful thoughts for our daily 
life. We catch hints of them even when we 
isolate the words from their immediate con- 
nection, for each is like a separate picture, 
which, interpreted by the language of Scrip- 
ture, glows with the beauty of a poem, and 
echoes with the tenderness of a song. You 
remember their order, valley^ garden^ riveVy 
aloes, cedar, trees beside the waters, and the 
crowning words Star and Sceptre, I am 
glad the first is valley, for as a Bible-word it 
is rich and full of suggestions of joy, confi- 
dence, and courage for the Christian, and 
it straightway guides us to a green pasture 
place, for it is written: '^ The Lord thy God 
bringeth thee into a good land, a land of 
brooks of water, of fountains and depths 
that spring out of valleys and hills " (Deut. 
viii. 7). " The valleys also are covered over 
with corn ; they shout for joy, they also 
sing " (Ps. Ixv. 13). ^^ He sendeth the springs 
into the valleys, which run among the hills *' 
(Ps. civ. 10). And He is our Saviour, the 



THE SEEING EYE. yo 

" I Am," " the Lily of the valley " (Solomon's 
Song ii. i). Thus, if our strength is in 
Him, '' passing through the valley of Baca 
He will make it a well '' (Ps. Ixxx. 6). He 
will feed us with ^^ the fruits of the valley '' 
(Solomon's Song vi. ii). "And the valley 
of Achor shall be a place for the herds to 
lie down in, for the people who have sought 
Him '' (Is. Ixv. lo). " For every valley shall 

be exalted And the crooked shall be 

made straight, and the rough places plain; 
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed " 
(Is. xl. 4). Hence, though "we be on the 
mountains like doves of the valleys^ all of 
them mourning, every one for his iniquity" 
(Ez. vii. 16), " He will give the valley of 
Achor for a door of Hope '* (Hosea ii. 15). 
And when called to "walk through the val- 
ley of the shadow of death, we need fear 
no evil, for He will be with us. His rod and 
staif will comfort" (Ps. xxiii. 4). And if 
like His servant of old we be " buried in 
a valley " (Deut. xxxiv. 4), " The clods of the 
valley shall be sweet " (Job xxi. 33). And 
then — the afterward! "Every valley shall 

be filled And all flesh shall see the 

salvation of God " (Luke iii. 5, 6). 



8o REST A WHILE. 

As Life upsprings from seeming death, 
from the thought of the valley^ as a place of 
graves, we will pass on to the types held in 
the word garden^ around which the blossoms 
of Life cluster when it pictures the human 
heart. We first find it freighted with this 
significance in the passage : " The Lord 
God took the man, and put him into the 
garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it'' 
(Gen. ii. 15). However literal our reading 
of Scripture may be, certainly there is a 
typical meaning in these words, which con- 
tains a solemn lesson for you, and for me, 

dear H , followed as they are by the 

declaration: *^ The Lord God sent him forth 
from the gai^dcfi'' (Gen. iii. 23), immedi- 
ately after he yielded to temptation. 

But heavy as the shadow of this banish- 
ment, it is lightened and soothed by the 
promise : " The Lord shall comfort Zion ; 
He will comfort all her waste places ; and 
He will make her wilderness like Eden, and 
her desert like the garden of the Lord ; joy 
and gladness shall be found therein, thanks- 
giving, and the voice of melody '* (Is. li. 3). 
And because of this consolation and for- 
giveness, the heart becomes " green before 



THE SEEING EYE. gj 

the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in 
his garden'' (Job viii. i6). For, ^' as the 
earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the 
garden cause th the things that are sown in 
it to spring forth ; so the Lord God will 
cause righteousness and praise to spring 
forth" (Is. Ixi. ii). That this may happen 
to us, and since the wind is an emblem of 
God's blessing, let us pray : " Awake, O 
north wind ; and come, thou south ; blow 
upon my garden that the spices thereof may 

flow out Let my Beloved come into 

His garden, and eat His pleasant fruits" 
(Solomon's Song iv. i6). We Christians 
know the fruits our Lord desires to find in 
the garden of our souls, are " the fruits of 
righteousness"; seeds of which His Love 
has sown, and which His grace will perfect, 
if w^e trust Him 

** Till in His garden fair, we bloom above." 

Meanwiiile, these spiritual garden-plots 
need 

*' Know no drought, 
Watered by Love : 
Oh, soft wind from the south 
Upon them move, 

4* 



82 REST A WHILE. 

Send forth their spices, by Thy gentle might, 
Draw forth rich fragrance from the lilies white." 

If we have found garden a word so full of 
meaning, think what River will prove, with 
its on-rolling promises for us ! Yes — for 
us^ for ^^ The glorious Lord will he unto us 
a place of broad rivers and streams " (Is. 
xxxiii. 2i). "He will open rivers in high 
places'' (Is. xli. i8). " He will even make 
a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the 
desert'' (Is. xliii. 19). And "He will cause 
us to walk by the rivers of waters in a 
straightway, wherein we shall not stumble " 
(Is. xxxi. 9). And " He will feed us upon 
the mountains of Israel by the rivers " (Eze. 
xxxiv. 13). And when at last we come to the 
shore of the river^ — Jordan— the typical, — 
still, the grace sufficient for our every time 
of need will be granted, for the Love that 
has " cut out rivers along the banks " (Job 
xxviii. 4) of this mortal life will not fail us 
at that hour ; and through its upholding 
power we will find the varied experiences 
we have known, of sorrow and of joy, of 
light and of darkness, will be like the ^'rivers 
that run into the sea " (Eze. i. 7) : the wide, 



THE SEEING EYE. 



83 



boundless sea — God's Love — for He has 
promised : " When thou passeth through 
the waters, I will be with thee ; and through 
the rivers^ they shall not overflow thee *' (Is. 
xliii. 2). " He will set His Hand in the sea, 
and His right Hand in the river " (Ps. Ixxxix. 
25). And ^^the gate of the river shall be 
opened '' (Nahum ii. 6), " the river of living 
waters'' (John vii. 38). ^*A pure river of 
water of Life, clear as crystal, proceeding 
out of the throne of God and of the Lamb " 
(Rev. xxii. i). And 

** Sweet will the touch of the waters be, 
To feet whose journey is done ! '* 

And on the brink of that river we will 
know, that 

** Through Him who hath washed us 

Whiter than snow, 
We may pass through the shallow river 

With heart a-glow — 
For the Lord's voice on the water 

Lingereth sweet. 
He that is washed needeth only 

To wash his feet." 

The Aloe is the next type for the " seeing 



84 



REST A WHILE. 



eye '' to ponder, and surely it is an emblem 
of the fragrant, all-pervasive influence which 
should emanate from the Christian, sweet, 
fresh, pure, and life-reviving as the aro- 
matic odor of w^hich it is w^ritten, " All thy 
garments smell of myrrh, and aloes^ and 
cassia, out of the ivory palaces whereby 
they have made thee glad " (Ps. xiv. 8). 
"Thy plants are an orchard of pleasant 
fruits, .... with all trees of frankincense : 
myrrh and aloes^ with all the chief spices '' 
(Solomon's Song iv. 14). How full of 
metaphors these verses become when we 
read them with our * heart's eye ' open, to 
behold the Lord's bountiful provision for 
our enjoyment as well as influence ; and 
how truly we find the fragrance of sweet 
odors is no empty emblem, for *^ no sense is 
more closely connected with the sphere of 
soul than the sense of smell. Its very 
vagueness and indefiniteness make it sug- 
gestive and quicken the mind's conscious- 
ness. Its agency is most subtle and exten- 
sive, going dow^n to the very depth of our 
nature, and back to the earliest dawn of 
life. It is on account of this far-reaching 
power of fragrance, its association with the 



THE SEEING EYE. gj 

deep and hidden things of the heart, that 
so many of the Bible images appeal to our 
sense of smell. It is regarded as an import- 
ant means of communication with Heaven, 
and a direct avenue for the soul's approach 
to the Father of Spirits." 

This we realize v^hen we recall how the 
sacrifices, and thanksgivings of God's early- 
people are mentioned in the Old Testament 
in much the same language as that which 
tells us of Noah's first sacrifice after the 
flood when ^' the Lord smelled a sweet 
savor." — The sacredness of this emblematic 
language is intensified when we read of 
Christ giving Himself for ^' an offering and 
a sacrifice to God of a sweet smelling sa- 
vor.'* A sentiment St. Paul repeats, when us- 
ing the same typical expression, he speaks 
of himself and the other apostles as " unto 
God a sweet savor of Christ." We also find 
*^the Psalms and prophetical writings full 
of beautiful metaphors borrowed from fra- 
grant odors." 

As an illustration of this, think how the 
prayers of the Lord's people are said to 
arise in incense ; and how St. John describ- 
ing the service of the '' upper Sanctuary," 



85 REST A WHILE. 

tells of the "golden vials full of odors which 
are the prayers of saints." Recall also, 
how all over the ancient world the offering 
of perfumes formed a part of religious wor- 
ship, and how " until very recently the 
sweet-sedge was strewn on the floors of 
some of the cathedrals of England, particu- 
larly Norwich Cathedral ; and exhaled when 
trodden on a delicious fragrance, which 
filled the whole building as with incense.*' 
In Norway, even now many of the church 
floors are strewn in a similar manner with 
the fresh leaves of the pine and birch, whose 
aromatic odor is very refreshing. One can 
but wonder if the custom of decorating our 
churches with flowers found birth in this 
primitive practice once so universal. — Cer- 
tainly " all this Eden-breathing perfume of 
nature is doubtless intended to lead our 
thoughts to God, and win us from the 
earthly things that have bewitched us with 
their sorceries. Jesus taught us to prize 
these beautiful chalices of field and wood 
for the sake of the holy thoughts, of which 
the heart is the interpreter, that breathe 
from out their odorous loveliness. He con- 
secrated them with the oil of His own ad- 



THE SEEING EYE. 



87 



miration, for the service of that temple 
where everything speaks of His glory. And 
if life should be a perpetual sacrament since 
He brake the daily bread of it in His hands, 
the fragrant breath of nature should be to 
us a perpetual incense rising up on the 
earth's great altar, reminding us of that 
marvellous Love that so loved the world, 
that He gave His only-begotten Son a sac- 
rifice for it. Each odor should be a tender 
voice calling to us from every blossom and 
leaf, to join in creation's worship as rep- 
resented in symbol before the throne by 
the four living creatures : " Thou art wor- 
thy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, 
and power; for Thou hast created all things, 
and for Thy pleasure they are and were 
created." 

** There's not a flower of spring, 
That dies ere June, but vaunts itself allied 
By issue and symbol, by significance 
And correspondence, to the spirit-world 
Outside the limits of our time and space, 
Whereto we are bound." 

Pleasant as it is to linger among the fra-. 
grant thoughts that smile forth from the 



88 REST A WHILE. 

** garden of spices," we must turn from the 
aloe which suggests them while we contem- 
plate the Cedar. This type you know so well 
in its application to the Christian's growth 
in grace, I need only refer to it by bidding 
you remember, if you earnestly seek the 
Lord " He will give you rest from the ene- 
mies — your sins — round about, and you 
shall dwell in a house of cedar'' (2 Sam. 
vii. 2). Remember also, " the righteous 
shall flourish, ... .he shall grow like a cedar 
in Lebanon '' (Ps. xcii. 12). Even ^' like the 
goodly cedars '' (Ps. Ixxx. 20), ^' the cedar- 
tree beside the waters '' (Mai. iv. 6). ^^ This 
is a peculiarly oriental image. A river in 
the arid East is an artery of life," a tree 
therefore with its topmost branches in the 
sunshine and its roots nourished by a water- 
course, '^ is one of the most beautiful images 
of a righteous man, who flourishes in the 
withering atmosphere of the world and en- 
dures the fiery trials of life, just because all 
his well-springs are in God, and the source 
of his human steadfastness and hope, are 
high up in Heaven." And thus he is truly 
like " a tree planted by the rivers of wa- 
ters, that bringeth forth his fruit in due 



THE SEEING EYE. 



89 



season, his leaf also shall not wither " (Ps. 
i. 3), For, " blessed is the man who trust- 
eth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is, 
for he shall be as a free planted by the wa- 
ters " (Jer. xvii. 8). But, while on the wings 
of faith we mount up like eagles as we 
meditate on the glorious visions our eyes 
behold in these verses, we must not forget 
the tree holds solemn warnings, used as 
a type of spiritual life, and our Lord 
Christ Himself uttered them when He 
said : *^ A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring 

forth good fruit Every tree that bring- 

eth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and 
cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits 
ye shall know them " (Matt. vii. 18-20). 
Chief among the ^* good fruits " ranks that 
" living self-sacrifice for others, which is 
the spontaneous natural outcome of a re- 
newed and loving nature, and not a dead 
perfunctory obedience to an outward law ; 
we know out of the loss and pain which 
this sacrifice involves comes the purest and 
deepest joy known to a brave spirit, just as 
the fruit which involves the self-sacrifice of 
the plant is the part that has the richest 



go REST A WHILE. 

fragrance and flower and the highest 
beauty." Yet, though we know this, how 
often, alas ! we hold our souls back from 
the education and discipline by which 
spiritual graces are helped to ripen, till 
they bring forth the blessed fruits, the per- 
fecting of which, like the motive of an 
action, are the object of this meditation, 
and which cluster with special significance 
around the word Tree. Regarded etymo- 
logically it is cognate with the Anglo-Saxon 
word treowan — to trust, to prove, or verify, 
and thus to think or to have knowledge or 
perception. ^^ Treowan'' still survives in the 
latter sense in our word to " trow/' — /. ^., to 
think, or believe. " Truth and trust," as 
you know, are " sister-terms," their quali- 
ties being literally " trees of the mind firm- 
ly rooted in the soil of mental conviction." 
The Hebrew word for tree also expresses 
the attribute of strength and endurance ; 
thus it is that " a tree becomes so beauti- 
fully symbolical of the stability of the right- 
eous, who rooted in the divine love, have a 
strength and unity of character which en- 
ables them to overcome the common temp- 
tations of daily life, as well as the great 



THE SEEING EYE. pi 

Stress of trial, because they have so grasped 
the truth of the glorious grace and faithful- 
ness of the God of Heaven that it has rooted 
them into a kindred constancy, and life is re- 
deemed from its vanity and perishableness 
by being united to Him who only has Life/' 

We come now to the emblem words Star 
and Sceptre, They each contain a glory of 
their own which floods the soul with a ra- 
diance language cannot intensify. And yet 
we tarry over the Old Testament declara- 
tions that " the sceptre shall not depart from 
Judah till Shiloh come ** (Gen. xlix. lo). 
'^ A sceptre shall rise out of Israel/' And we 
rejoice, as we read in the New Testament 
that this promise is fulfilled, and " Thy 
throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a 
sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of 
Thy kingdom " (Heb. i. 8). 

Precious, indeed, is this assurance, and 
yet its light grows dim before the brighter 
beams of Bethlehem's Star, that shines 
above the Mount of Calvary with unquench- 
able radiance. In Genesis, first chapter, 
we read, ^^ He made the stars^' and their 
glory culminates in the Revelation verse, 
" I, Jesus, am the bright and Morning Star,*' 



p2 REST A WHILE. 

God grant, dear H , our lives may 

thus, from their dawning to their ending, be 
encompassed by the ^' guidance of a Star,'' 
and thus when the mortal passes on to the 
immortal, '' He who telleth the number of 
the stars, He who calleth them all by name,*' 
may, through His infinite grace revealed in 
Christ, number us among "the stars of 
light " (Ps. cxlviii.) that rejoice in His 
presence There, when " the morning stars 
sing together, and all the sons of God 
shout for joy" (Job xxxviii. 7). Our medita- 
tion on the thoughts suggested by Baalam's 
metaphors has so lengthened, I can only 
pause to bid you remember, to see God's 
face by the eye of faith, " is to distinguish 
the real from the illusory, the true from 
the false. And it is to be at peace. And it 
is to live in love; for it is to have our tears 
wiped away by His hand who made the 
soul, and who alone can understand it, and 
who gives to it — even laden with its infirmi- 
ties, but washed and cleansed, and forgiven 
^for its Saviour's sake — that which man is 
too poor and too proud to give — a divine 
tenderness, a ceaseless love." Remember, 
also, " we may see the face of God in the 



THE SEEING EYE. g^ 

life of Christ's true servants and followers/* 
but to do this we must keep near to Him, for 
" any eye can discern faults, it is only the 
good who are never blind to kindred good- 
ness.'* Hence, the only cure for the narrow 
vision of a ^ short-sighted ' soul is found by 
daily asking for, and seeking ^* fuller, fresher, 
and further revelations of the beauty of 
Christ." That you may gain these wider 
outlooks and their sequel of clear, far-reach- 
ing spiritual vision, let your prayer be : 

** Lord Jesus, make Thyself to me 
A living bright reality ! 
More present, to faith's vision keen, 
Than e'en the nearest object seen ; 
More dear, more intimately nigh, 
Than e'en the dearest earthly tie," 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 



95 



** Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it 
cannot save ; neither is His ear heavy that it cannot 
hear." — Is. lix. i, 

'* Father, in Thy dear presence kneeHng, 

Our spirits yearn to feel Thy kindling love, 
Now make us strong, we need Thy deep revealing 
Of Trust, and Strength, and calmness from 
above." 

*^ In the day when I cried Thou answeredst me, and 
strengthen edst me with strength in my soul." — Ps. 
cxxxviii. 3. 



96 



IV. 

THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 

YOU tell me, dear H , that suddenly, 
as the tide changes from incoming to 
outgoing, the place prayer has long filled in 
your life has changed, and from your afore- 
time calm anchorage within the restful 
haven of trust in God as the hearer and 
answerer of prayer, you have drifted out to 
the wide sea of speculative inquiry and 
argumentative discussion, which marks so 
much of the religious life of the present 
age. I am glad you use the word religious 
rather than Christian life, for your recogni- 
tion that the one does not signify the other 
is a sure sign that you are looking Heaven- 
ward, even though for a time your way 
there may lead through the shadowy-land 
of mental perplexity and spiritual disquie- 
tude. Yes, the being religious and the 
being a Christian, are as unlike as a Decem- 

(97) 



gS REST A WHILE. 

ber snowflake is unlike a June-time dew- 
drop. Yet, just as snowflake and dewdrop 
are composed of the same elementary sub- 
stances, the terms " religious " and ^' Chris- 
tian " denote a spiritual condition in which 
similar elements are combined, though pos- 
sessed of widely differing developments. 
For, it is quite possible to be religious, with- 
out having taken so much as one step to- 
w^ard being a Christian. Ponder this, and 
you will find, unless I am greatly mistaken, 
an illumining of the darkness now encom- 
passing you, that will teach you not to be 
alarmed by the mystery and unreconcil- 
ableness you find so bewildering and faith- 
upsetting, as you encounter the conflicting 
statements of God's unchangeability, with 
the granting of petitions that involve a 
seeming reversal of laws which control the 
physical world. In this light you will also 
learn that if you seek Truth with a pro- 
foundly earnest desire to find the " hidden 
manna '' of grace, you will be fed by the 
divine nourishment our Heavenly Father 
keeps for His needy children, even those 
who are numbered among the blessed, be- 
cause they thus hunger. Is not the hope of 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 



99 



such a feeding in the green pastures of spir- 
itual plenty, a sequel worth all the discipline 
caused by the doubts now testing your 
faith in the power of prayer ? 

Be comforted, too, by the knowledge that 
obscurity of spiritual vision is not opposed 
to the Apostle Paul's definition of Christian 
faith, and that " hope which we have as an 
anchor of the soul, .... and which enter- 
eth within the veil,'' thus out-running our 
present power of sight, which for ftow " is 
through a glass darkly." But the questions 
which are legitimate for a Christian to en- 
tertain, if God has given him a mind point- 
ed by an interrogation, are very unlike the 
spirit of idle, scoffing speculation, which de- 
sires to exalt self by a display of subtle and 
brilliant reasoning powers. For the Chris- 
tian's doubts are born partly out of a deep 
yearning for greater nearness to Christ ; 
partly out of the results of recent investiga- 
tions, both physical and historical, which 
seem to prove that opinions which have 
held sway for years are no longer tenable ; 
and partly out of the mystery which en- 
shrouds life and the why of permitted suf- 
fering and sin. 



100 ' REST A WHILE. 

A mystery allowed perhaps, for the very 
purpose of perplexing man's reason, for 

** If faith were left untried, 
How could the might which lurks within her then 
Be shown ? her glorious excellence, that ranks 
Among the first of Powers and Virtues, proved ?" 

These words reveal the spirit in which we 
will view your mental and spiritual bew^il- 

derments, dear H . And I will take 

them for a preface to my reply to the fears 
you express regarding, what you call, the 
" Problem of Prayer," adding to them, Rob- 
ert Browning's lines — 

** I show you doubt to prove that faith exists, 
The more of doubt the stronger faith I say, 
If faith o'ercome doubt. How I know it does ? 
By life and man's free will God gave for that. 
To mould life as we choose it shows our choice ; 
That's our one act, the previous work's His own. 

The sum of all is — yes, my doubt is great. 

My faith's still greater, then, my faith's enough." 

Despite this quotation, I do not wonder 
you are troubled by the doubts that, like 
armed foes, have come knocking at your 
heart's door, for full well I know such 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. jqi 

doubts have made shipwreck of many a 
soul's peace in believing. That they may 
not do this in your case let us humbly strive 
to define the hoiiu and why of the need 
of prayer in the Christian life. You state 
your difficulties in the form of questions, 
and each holds an inquiry as clearly defined 
as the outline of a mountain peak against 
the deep blue of a cloudless sky. Accord- 
ing to the order of your arrangement they 
read : 

What is meant by prayer in the name of 
Christ ? 

How is prayer religion in action ? 

Of what does prayer consist ? 

Why is prayer called one form of hard 
work ? 

Is prayer limited to petition, or does it 
include, meditation and communion ? 

How can we reconcile prayer and law, — 
God's Sovereignty and man's freedom ? 
And you add — What surety have we that 
prayer will be answered ? 

These questions are all of them common- 
place, but for that matter flowers on a sun- 
ny hill-slope are commonplace. Yet, '^ as 
the flowers and everything else, that is lovely 



102 REST A WHILE. 

in this visible world, are only to be seen 
rightly with the eyes which the God who 
made them gave us/' so in the study of 
spiritual truth, the eyes of the soul which 
God has given us, must be wide open if 
we are to rightly understand even the most 
commonplace need for prayer. Here, again, 
we are met by the analogy between the 
right understanding of God's great mercy 
to the earth — flowers ; — and God's great 
mercy to the soul — prayer. — It suggests 
closely interwoven lines of correspondence, 
for '' as a flower to be rightly understood, 
must be studied as it grows, in its associa- 
tion with the earth, air, and the dew ; its 
leaves seen as they expand in sunshine ; its 
colors, as they embroider the field, or illum- 
ine the forest," — so prayer is to be studied 
in its close association with the every-day 
life of the soul, in which the earth stands 
as a type of the human heart, the air of the 
spiritual atmosphere surrounding it ; and 
the dew of the tender care of the Heavenly 
Father which nourishes and expands — 
through the observance of prayer — '' the 
fruits of the Spirit.'' Following this prayer 
and flower analogy still further, we find as 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 



103 



" those who dissect or magnify the flowers 
know, all they discover or learn at last will 
be that oaks, roses, and daisies are all made 
of fibres and bubbles ; and these, again, o. 
charcoal and water ; but, for all their peep- 
ing and probing nobody knows how/' 

And it is thus w^e find the schools of the- 
ology unable to explain the mystery of 
prayer. And yet it straightway becomes 
an " open secret '' when we remember our 
Saviour's preface and seal for all true 
prayer — " Our Father," and " Thy will be 
done." 

" Our Father ! " repeat the words softly, 
and you will find they quiet your difficulties 
as no unaided wisdom of the schools can, 
for wisdom is like a dark-lantern till faith 
kindles its lamp ; and the knowledge of man 
can no more explain the perplexities that 
up-spring from either physical or historical 
investigations, and the deductions made 
from them, than it can explain why the 
wind blew from the north yesterday, and 
from the south to-day. 

"Our Father, Hallowed be Thy Name." 
If in very truth you can thus pray, then for 
you the lamp of faith is lit, and you need 



104 ^^^^ ^ WHILE. 

no longer fear the perplexities that disturb 
you, for in its light you can thankfully ac- 
cept " every fresh discovery in the order of 
nature and in the life of man, as showing 
more of the glory of God." But this may 
cause the re-adjusting of many opinions, 
which you have clung to, since the unques- 
tioning days of childhood, because of loyalty 
to the system of theology accepted by your 
early teachers, some of whom have gone 
from earth to Heaven. Thus to them, what- 
ever "new views" you may hold, you are 
still bound by a tie nothing can sunder, if 
you pray as they did to God — " Our Fa- 
ther." " That name gives to the ear of 
faith a promise of union underlying all dif- 
ferences and reaching beyond all time, of 
union which is established and not broken 
by death, of union which is consummated 
in the open vision of God." 

The words " open vision " are a hint, I 
think, of one cause of your present bewilder- 
ment, for you desire it for now, rather than 
resting content with the blessed promise of it 
Hereafter. Be this as it may, of one thing I 
am sure : if this season of spiritual unrest 
leads you to turn from the unsatisfying study 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 105 

of conflicting systems of theology to Christ, 
as the Revealer of Truth, it will be worth 
all the mental conflict and spiritual gloom it 
now costs. And as you pass into the light 
of Christ's words, you will behold in them a 
power which promotes the blessed charity 
which springs from seeing in different dog- 
mas different sides of a faith the same in 
substance despite diversity of form and ex- 
pression. You will also find in Christ's teach- 
ing no disturbing trace of what may be 
termed " systematic theology." For " noth- 
ing is more remarkable in that teaching than 
the way in which it throws off one after an- 
other the sloughs of system, and spreads and 
operates unspent by its own divine vitality.*' 
■ — " It is this extraordinary power of easy ex- 
pansion, the power of adapting itself to the 
most diverse forms of thought, which is one 
strong proof of the eternal fitness of Chris- 
tianity for mankind. In this there is a fine 
correspondence between Christ's words and 
music, which is the least definable of all the 
arts ; it appeals to emotion, not to reason. 
Neither you nor I can say of that air of 
Mozart's, that it means this or that. It 
means one thing to me, another thing to 

5* 



lo6 REST A WHILE. 

you. It leaves, however, an indefinite but 
similar impression upon us both, a sense of 
exquisite melody, which soothes life, a love 
of a life in harmony with the impression 
made, and an affection for the man who 
gave us so delicate an emotion. So it is 
with the words of Christ. The understand- 
ing cannot define them ; the spirit receives 
them ; and each man receives them in ac- 
cordance with the state of his spirit — to one 
they are solemn with harmony, to another 
they are soothing with comfort ; to one 
they mean battle, to another peace ; to one 
they sound like music on the water, to an- 
other like the trump of doom. Could you 
define the meaning of Mozart's air, so that 
it should be the same to all, how much had 
been lost ! Could you do the same by 
Christ's words, what a misfortune ! To 
limit them to one meaning would be to de- 
stroy their life." But, thank God, they are 
a part of that never to be exhausted " Bread 
of Life " which always contains a supply for 
the faithful who seek its support. Hence, 
if we earnestly desire this spiritual food, 
we will surely find many a fragment of it, 
as we muse on your questions regarding 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. 



107 



prayer. But while I seek to help you to 
look beyond the difficulties they suggest, 
remember I will in no instance endeavor to 
solve them by "doctrinal explanation/' for, 
like George Eliot's wise " Adam," 1 think " it 
is better for a soul to be humble before the 
mystery of God's dealing, and not to be 
making a clatter about what no man can 
understand." Nevertheless, though I will 
strive to avoid the quicksands of " Old and 
New Theology," I will frequently cull my 
replies from volumes that have helped me. 
The books I refer to are penned by clear- 
minded scholars and earnest followers of 
Christ — Canons Liddon and Westcott, of 
the English Church. 

" What is prayer in the Name of Jesus ? " 
— This is your first query — and you tell me 
you know the usual answer — ^ Prayer in the 
name of Jesus is offering a request with the 
hope that it will be granted, not because of 
any worthiness on your part, but simply on 
account of the merits of Christ.' — And you 
add — ^ One does not need to have gone far 
on the path of prayer, to find that this reply 
falls far short of the full blessed meaning 
the words must contain to have made prayer 



I08 REST A WHILE. 

the precious thing it is to so many of God's 
children.' — I do not wonder it fails to satis- 
fy you, for it is like pointing a thirsty man 
to a trickling streamlet, rather than to the 
full " Brook in the Way," where may be 
found the thirst-satisfying " Water of Life " 
of which the promise is — ^^ Open thy mouth 
wide and I will fill it"; "Be it unto thee 
even as thou wilt," for God's measure of 
mercy is always full, pressed down, shaken 
together and running over. 

So if you go thirsty it is not from lack 
of a ready blessing, but because you hold 
back from receiving it. To prove the truth 
of this : 

** Dip your cup into the sea 
It rises full ; 
Such cup each soul may be. 
Such ocean is God's Love.'* 

This will become real to you when you 
enter into that relationship with your 
Heavenly Father that Christ referred to 
when He said to the disciples, " Hitherto 
ye have asked nothing in My name,'' thus 
revealing that there is something closer 
and nearer in the Gospel idea of prayer 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. jqq 

than we find in the old-time dispensation. 
Just here we encounter a paradox, for every 
prayer offered in the name of Jesus is offered 
in dependence on His name, but every 
prayer offered in dependence on the merits 
of Christ, is not necessarily for that reason 
a prayer in the name of Jesus. I hardly 
know how to make this plain to you, for 
like so many Gospel truths, it is one of the 
things that only they who do His will can 
understand. Then, too, in all "that con- 
cerns the soul we know only when we love, 
and we know as we love.'* Thus trying to 
explain a spiritual truth by words is like 
trying to pass on to a distant friend the 
full rich fragrance of a June rose when the 
dew is still on its unfolding leaves. Perhaps 
you will catch my meaning if you think of 
the difference between praying with a sense 
of resting on the merits of Christ as a shield 
between you and God*s displeasure over your 
sins, and the prayer which realizes through 
Christ's Love " sins are blotted out, and 
remembered no more." — The first is a state 
of mind which fills the heart with a sense 
of its own guilt and the holiness of God, 
but gives it no sense of justification and 



no REST A WHILE. 

peace ; while the second is the sweet assur- 
ance of faith, found " in believing that He 
is, and that He is a rewarder of them that 
diligently seek Him." You must also '^ be- 
lieve that every thought of tender service 
and self-surrender, every aspiration toward 
a conscious fellowship with all created 
things, every striving toward a truer unity, 
by which we are stirred, corresponds in its 
essence with the infinite perfection of Him 
in whose image we are made. He must 
interpret all that is noblest in the soul as a 
foreshadowing of Divine realities. Thus 
Love springs out of Faith, and is supported 
by it. Faith enables us to enter on the un- 
seen, to give reality to the fabrics of hope. 
And Love, borne by faith, dimly sensible of 
its power under the limitations of earth, 
rises into that spiritual realm, and knows 
that all things are possible to the love of 
God." These thoughts will show you, dear 

H , that many of your troubles have 

come from seeking to understand prayer 
by the mind rather than the heart, some- 
thing you cannot do, for St. Paul tells us " it 
is not with the understanding, not with the 
reason, but with the heart man believeth." 



THE PROBLEM OF PRAYER. m 

And as I have told you before, to find rest 
and peace, instead of looking within at self, 
and sin, you must lift your gaze up, toward 
God the Father, whom you approach in the 
name of Jesus — a sure plea for entrance into 
the Treasure-House of God's blessings, for 
Christ said, " I Am the Door : if by Me any 
man enters in he shall be saved, .... and 
shall find pasture." This is a promise 
which leads to the wonderful revelations of 
Divine Love contained in our Lord's ^' I 
Am " titles as we find them recorded in the 
Gospel according to John, where they shine 
like stars revolving around a central sun, 
for, every one of them, revolves around the 
central truth of Christ's declaration : ^^ I 

Am come in My Father's Name I and 

My Father are One." — Surely such a com- 
ing on the part of our Lord Christ is radi- 
ant with Light illumining your question, 
^^ What is prayer in the Name of Jesus ? " 
The hopes that shine out of this Light are 
too many, and too dear for the limits of 
this Leaflet to compass, so we will pass 
them on as subjects to ponder in future 
meditations on "The ^I Am' Titles of 
Christ," and " Thoughts on Prayer." — 



112 REST A WHILE. ^ ^^ 

Meanwhile, if your vision Godward is still 
clouded, ''love illuminated by faith " whis- 
pers, ^* though you see little, He sees all'' 
And, 

*' Love understands the mystery, whereof 
We can but spell a surface history ; 

Love knows, remembers ; let us trust in Love ; 
Love understands the mystery. 

Love weighs the event, the long pre-history, 
Measures the depth beneath, the height above, 

The mystery, with the ante-mystery. 

Trust all to Love, be patient and approve ; 
Love understands the mystery." 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 



113 



Jesus said : 

'' I Am the Bread of Life." — John vi. 35. 

*' I Am the Living Bread." — ^John vi. 51. 

*'I Am the Light of the World." — John viii. 12. 

^* I Am the Door of the Sheep." — John x. 7. 

'' I Am the Good Shepherd." — John x. 14. 

^^ I Am the Resurrection and the Life." — John xi. 25. 

'' I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."— John 
xiv. 6. 

*' I Am the True Vine." — John xv. i. 

*^ I Am the Vine, ye are the branches." — ^John xv, 5. 



114 



V. 

THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 

AS a preface for our meditation to-day, 
I copy an extract from Brooke Foss 
Westcott's volume, " Short Lectures on the 
Titles of the Lord/' And we will follow 
his guidance, more or less, in our ponder- 
ing on each of these ^' I Am'' titles. 

He writes : ^' Every thoughtful reader of 
the Bible must have been often struck by 
the importance which is attached to the 

Divine Names in the different Books 

At first sight this singular significance, this 
mysterious virtue attached to them may ap- 
pear strange, but if we pause for a moment 
we shall see whence it comes. Of God, as 
He is in Himself, in His absolute and un- 
approachable Majesty, we can as yet know 
nothing. But the names by which we are 
allowed to address Him gather up what is 
shown to us, relatively to our powers, of 

(115) 



Il6 REST A WHILE. 

His working and of His will. The divine 
names receive and reflect scattered rays of 
heavenly truth as men can bear their efful- 
gence ; and when they have been set in 
our spiritual firmament they burn for ever. 
Thus, each name authoritatively given to 
God is, so to speak, a fresh and lasting 
revelation of His nature. Now in one title, 
and now in another, we catch glimpses of 
His ineffable glory. Each one in turn be- 
comes a beacon to guide us, a pathway of 
light traversing the world of thought. And 
if we would penetrate at all to the deeper 
meanings of Scripture, we must watch heed- 
fully for the interchange of the divine names 
in which long trains of argument or reflec- 
tion are contained." 

" I Am," — think, dear H , what a very 

significant pledge of God's abiding Pres- 
ence with His people that name of Jehovah 
is, as we meet it in the Old Testament, and 
hov/ tenderly it is linked with the "Fear 
thou not" promises which find their fulfil- 
ment in the revelation of Christ as the visi- 
ble expression of the Father. 

" I Am," the very words are like a great 
and powerful Presence, that comes to us 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 



117 



with an impression that can only be de- 
scribed by this Divine declaration. ^' I Am/' 
— Yes — it is an assurance that the peace 
within the soul, which passeth all under- 
standing, is not caused fy, but is, in fact, 
Christ Himself, and that is an i7npression of 
His being. The following illustration will 
tell you what I mean : " We look at a pic- 
ture and see the beautiful harmony of its 
colors, and the vision of beauty our souls 
drink in we call ' the picture,' and we 
never think of considering the harmony 
and beauty other than pertaining to the 
picture. We hear music, and melody 
floods in upon us its magic influence, and 
we cry out : ^ Ah ! the sensation within 
me,' not, ^ this music without which has 
caused it.' Why, then, when in some of 
those wondrous visions which the soul 
catches of Christ — how it matters not, and 
we knov/ not — when He is seen by the 
spiritual sense unconsciously and involun- 
tarily, — even as a man must hear music 
when music is around him, — and a strange 
peace comes flooding in upon our souls, 
should we cry : ' Oh, the peace within me,' 
that peace u Christ, the token and sign of 



Il8 REST A WHILE. 

His Presence." Be this as it may, each of 

the I Am titles, as we find them recorded by 
St. John, contains a metaphor full of pre- 
cious meaning for the unlearned as well as 
the learned, the child as well as the sage. 

But this blessed power of adaptation to 
individual needs, which so marks Scriptural 
truth, is not confined to the Gospel, for it 
runs like a golden thread all through the 
Bible. Nevertheless, it shines with especial 
lustre, when we read of the Eastern Star 
which summoned to the Saviour's presence 
'^ the wise men with odors sweet/* and the 
humble shepherds, who fed their flocks on 
the Bethlehem hill-slopes. But our task is 
to seek the radiance with which it illumines 
prayer, as we view it in the light of Christ's 
^' I Am'' promises. Note how it shines like 
a gleam of silvery moonlight athwart the 
very first of the blessed titles, " / A^n the 
Bread of Life^ .... he that eateth this 
bread shall live forever." This is a prom- 
ise which meets the want of every soul, for 
from the lowest to the highest the desire 
after immortality, and something more than 
this world can give, is as universal as the 
desire for sunrise after midnight. This de- 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST, up 

sire is also a sacred part of the souTs heri- 
tage offered when "God created man in His 
own image," and given every time a soul 
receives ^' the spirit of adoption, whereby 
we cry, Abba, Father, .... and become 
the children of God ; and if children, then 
heirs ; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with 
Christ'* (Romans viii. 17). It is the hope 
of this ^ afterward ' that kindles life here 
with glory. When we remember this hope 
of " eternal life " knows nothing of class 
distinctions, but is as free and open as the 
sunshine to all who will receive it " through 
Christ," how it deepens the meaning of 
life ; and, through its power of interpret- 
ing, what royal souls we meet among those 
who — according to this w^orld's estimate 
of position — rank as earth's lowly people. 
Faber's lines on the ^ Old Labourer," bring 
out this truth in rich colors. I will copy 
themj since these meditations are merely 
pages from our Heart-to-Heart diary, and 
bounded by no formal rule of composition ; 
and, though in one sense the thought they 
hold is like turning from our subject, the 
atmosphere of prayer surrounds it. The 
poem hints, too, answers to some of the per- 



I20 REST A WHILE. 

plexities now troubling you, revealing as it 
does a glint of light which falls aslant the 
why of permitted poverty, suffering, and 
sorrow. I beg you observe also how it ac- 
centuates the truth that — 

*' Man's existence bows to the monition, *Wait T 
Take the joys and bear the sorrows — neither with 

extreme concern ! 
Living here means nescience pimply ; 'tis next life 
that helps to learn. 

Soon shall things be unperplexed 
And the right and wrong, now tangled, lie unravel- 
led in the next." 

For— 

** After earth, comes peace 
Born out of life-long battle.'* 

Meanwhile, be our social rank what it 
may, we are all children of our Father in 
Heaven, and our Saviour's yearning love 
goes out toward all as it did when He was 
on earth. Such a wonderful Love, revealed 
in all its tenderness and pity even when He 
had most reason to appreciate the degen- 
eracy and unworthiness of man ; revealed 
even when He upbraided the thoughtless, 
indifferent, and stubborn ; for the " woes ' 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST.' 121 

recorded in the 23d chapter of Matthew, 
seem to be a prophecy and a warning of 
what individuals will bring on themselves, 
not of what He will send them. When we 
recognize His Love for "all sorts and condi- 
tions of men,'' how, as I said, it encompasses 
with the sacr^dness of Heavenly benedic- 
tion the people we are wont to pass with 
indifference — the tired men and women who 
yet are dear to Him, though their figures 
may be bowed by toil, their hands hardened 
by work, their faces lined by care, while the 
music has gone from their voices. Have 
you ever noticed how quickly the voice tells 
of familiarity with the hard work-a-day side 
of life ? It seems to possess a note of mel- 
ody which — except in rare cases — belongs 
only to those who are shielded from weary 
contact with sordid care. But though voice- 
melody be hushed for a time, what matter 
if the music be in the heart ? — In truth, I 
think the very experience of restraint will 
make it all the sweeter when at last the soul 
is set free. All this has led us away from 
the verses called, " The Old Labourer '': — 

** What end doth he fulfil? 
He seems without a will, 
6 



122 REST A WHILE. 

Stupid, unhelpful, helpless, age-worn man ! 

** What doth God get from him ? 
His very mind is dim, 
Too weak to love, and too obtuse to fear. 

Is there glory in his strife ? 

Is there meaning in his life ? 
Can God hold such a thing-like*person dear ? 

** Peace ! he is dying now ; 

No light is on his brow ; 
He makes no sign, but without sign departs. 

The poor die often so, — 

And yet they long to go, 
To take to God their over-weighted hearts. 

* * Born only to endure, 
The patient, passive poor 

Seem useful chiefly by their multitude ; 
For they are men who keep 
Their lives secret and deep ; 

Alas ! the poor are seldom understood. 

** This labourer that is gone 

Was childless and alone, 
And homeless as his Saviour was before him ; 

He told in no man's ear 

His longing, love, or fear. 
Nor what he thought of life as it passed o'er him, 

** To whom was he of good ? 
To what might such a soul as his aspire ? 



THE *a AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 123 

** He seemed a mere growth of earth ; 
Yet even he had mirth, 
As the great angels have, untold and hidden. 

** Always his downcast eye 
Was laughing silently, 

As if he found some jubilee in thinking : 
For his one thought was God, 
In that one thought he abode, 

For ever in that thought more deeply sinking, 

*' Thus did he live his life, 

A kind of passive strife, 
Upon the God within his heart relying ; 

Men left him all alone. 

Because he was unknown. 
But he heard the angels sing when he was dying. 

And— 

** God judges by a light, 

Which baffles mortal sight. 
And the useless-seeming man the crown hath won: 

In His vast world above, 

A world of broader love, 
God hath some grand employment for His son." 

We have made a wide digression, but 
there is still time for a brief pondering 
over the thoughts that cluster around our 
Saviour's words : " I Am the Bread of Life, 
, ... he that eateth this Bread shall live 



124 REST A WHILE. 

forever." Observe, our acceptance of this 
divine food is stated as a necessary condi- 
tion of our receiving eternal Life — for while 
it is freely offered, it will be of no benefit 
unless we ^' take and eat/' But even as we 
do this we must remember " there is an 
active side to life and there is a passive side. 
Both are exercised ; both are consecrated 
by our faith. There is need of Christian 
energy and effort and movement ; there is 
need also of Christian patience, and rest 
and waiting. We must come to Christ, if 
we would find in Him our spiritual food ; 
we must leave something in order that we 
may seek Him ; we must use the powers 
which He has given us, in order that we 
may find Him. And, on the other hand, we 
must believe in Christ ; there is a sense in 
which our strength must be to stand still ; 
in which our intensest strivings must yet be 
combined with repose ; in which our boldest 
conflicts must be tempered with a sense of 
peace in Him. He is at once our remote 
and future aim, and our immediate and 
present stay. And His gift corresponds 
already with this two-fold claim. He offers 
that which will stay our hunger, that will 



THE *'I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 



125 



give strength for labor, and restore the 
waste of the past. So it is that man's 
spiritual food, which is Christ Himself, an- 
swers to the varied wants of his higher life ; 
and this it does as being not only a source 

of life, but also endowed with life 

Nor is this all. The bread — the support 
which Christ is — is the bread of life, bringing, 
that is, the life over which death has no 
power : it is also the living bread, being it- 
self possessed of that life v/hich it conveys ; 
and, yet more, the life which Christ gives, 
the life which Christ has, is not alien from 
that of man, but most truly human/' I 
need hardly remind you in this connection, 
that our spiritual feeding upon Christ is 
the result of faith, and yet I would bid you 
remember while it is easy to grasp the idea, 
that " eating the flesh of Christ " is a figura- 
tive way of describing faith in Christ, such 
a method of dealing with the words of Holy 
Scripture is really to empty them of their 
divine force. "This spiritual eating, this feed- 
ing upon Christ, is the last result of faith, 
the highest energy of faith, but it is no.' 
faith itself. To eat is to take that into our- 
selves which we can assimilate as the sup- 



126 REST A WHILE. 

port of life. The phrase, ^ to eat the flesh 
of Christ,' expresses therefore, as perhaps 
no other language could express, the great 
truth, that Christians are made partakers of 
the human nature of their Lord, which is 
united in One Person to His Divine nature, 
that He imparts to us now, and that we can 
receive into our own self-hood, something 
of His manhood, which may be the seed, so 
to speak, of the glorified bodies in which we 
shall hereafter behold Him. Faith, if I may 
so express it, in its more general sense, 
leaves us outside Christ, trusting to Him ; 
but this crowning act of faith incorporates 
us in Christ": ^^ z^/^? abide in Him and He in 
us,'' — But I will not dwell longer on the 
revelation of Christ as our spiritual food. 
It is a subject for prayer and not for words, 
and the Spirit will teach you to under- 
stand its mysteries, and help you "to know 
that beneath all that is poor and fleeting 
and imperfect in our visible life, there is a 
principle of eternal life by which we, through 
the infinite grace of God, can claim fellow- 
ship with Him. He will teach that the one 
only support of this life is Christ Himself, 
truly God and truly man, who took our 



THE ''I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 127 

nature, and bore our sin that we may be one 
with Him, and in Him bear the transform- 
ing splendor of the open vision of God. He 
will teach us that the Holy Communion is 
no strange exceptional service, but in very 
deed the lively image of our Christian life, 
and the lively pledge that the fulness of that 
life is possible for us by participation in 
Him Who is life. He will teach us by 
worthier and more sustained resolves, by 
simpler and tenderer devotion, by more ab- 
solute self-forgetfulness, by more vital rec- 
ognition of Christ's Presence with us and 
in us, to come to know with more certain 
assurance and more complete surrender all 
that lies between the beginning and the end 

of faith : ' I Am the bread of life He 

thai eateth of this bread shall live forever^ " 

" And while we offer ourselves as humble 
scholars in His school, we shall train our 
impatient minds to reverent self-restraint. 
We shall not be hasty to define in forms of 
human speech truths which pass finally into 
the unapproachable glory of the Divine 
Being, We shall confess that we have no 
powers to determine how things transitory 
and sensible can become channels of grace 



128 REST A WHILE. 

eternal and spiritual. Every question even 
as to earthly life eludes us, if we strive to 
go beyond the fact and the accompanying 
circumstances to the cause. Can we wonder 
that it is so in matters of spiritual life ? 
Tut where speculation fails, obedience and 
faith will confirm to us the blessing of Holy 
Communion, the joy of Holy Eucharist. 
. . . . And God in His great Love will en- 
able us, like St. Peter, to find that these 
hard sayings are to us words of eternal life.*' 

** Let but thy heart become a valley low, 
And God will rain on it till it will overflow." 

''\ Am the Light of the Wodd.*' We 
will not pause over this blessed assurance, 
for we have already considered Christ as 
our Light, and we Christians, as reflect- 
ors of His Divine illumination. Mean- 
while, may God deliver us from all blind- 
ness of heart, for "what He opens, must 
open be"; and His promise to shine in the 
soul where faith abides is never more 
brightly realized than in our hours of 
prayer, hence let us plead : 

" Come, Holy Spirit ! from the height 
Of heaven send down Thy blessed light ! 



THE '*I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 129 

Come, Father of the friendless poor ! 
Giver of gifts, and Light of hearts, 
Come with that unction which imparts 

Such consolations as endure. 



Where Thou art, Lord ! there is no ill. 
For evil's self Thy light can kill. 

Oh, let that light upon us rise ! 
Lord ! heal our wounds, and cleanse our stains, 
Fountain of grace ! and with Thy rains 

Our barren spirits fertilize." 



" I Am the Door of the Sheep." '' I Am 
the Door : by Me if any man enter in, he 
shall be saved, and shall go in and go out, 
and shall find pasture." Here we are again 
met by the necessity for effort on our part 
if we are to obtain the offered blessing : for 
only as we enter can we find pasture and 
gain the privilege of going 'in and out.' 
These words tell us, ^' the fold which the 
Christian enters through Christ, the fold 
which gives safety to the flock, is a place 
for shelter and not a place for isolation. 
He who has passed into it and found in it 
his proper home, finds it also a vantage- 
ground for wider action. When the time 
comes he passes out, but he still observes 
6* 



I30 



REST A WHILE. 



this law, that he passes out through Christ. 
Therefore it is that he goes forth, as his 
Lord opens the way, to claim fresh victories 
for the Faith, to quicken in others the sense 
of the unseen behind the seen, to set forth 
the eternal which underlies things tem- 
poral. But while he passes into the world, 
doing His Master's work there, by the way 
which his Master opens, he does not remain 
in the world. When his task is accom- 
plished he enters again by the narrow and 
living Door into those closer conditions of 
communion which supply him with confi- 
dence, with strength, with safety, w4th the 
energies of inspiring sympathy, with the 
resources of eternal life/' Surely this ten- 
der figure, of Christ, as the Good Shepherd, 
makes very real our personal nearness to 
Him ; while it assures us, robed in the gar- 
ment of prayer, ^' when the evening falls 
and our day's work is done, w^e may re- 
turn to the Fold, and through Him renew 
our strength and faith by the sense of fel- 
lowship and security to which He alone 
opens the living way." How ready He is to 
do this ! — " There is a complete devotion 
to the charge which issues in absolute sac- 



. THE *'I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 131 

rifice of self Think, too, how as He call- 
eth each sheep by name, and 

** Leads them forth, He goeth out before them, 
That where two ways meet 
They may look to Him whose eye is watching o'er 

them, 
To guide their roving feet." 

Dear H , do you know the Good 

Shepherd thus, as your guide ? Do you love 
Him so well ; do you strive to follow Him 
so closely, that whether your path be through 
green pastures, by the still waters, or wheth- 
er it be a rocky mountain climb, uphill all 
the way, you can still with a glad heart say, 

" He is my Shepherd, I His sheep, 
I do not want to know 
Whether the way be soft or steep 
By which I am to go ?" 

If you can thus say, then, all is well. — 
"The Lord will feed thee as a lamb in a 
large place " (Hosea iv. 16). " He will feed 
thee in a good pasture, and cause thee to 
lie down in a good fold *' (Eze. xxxiv. 16). 

All our Lord's " I Am '' titles are precious, 



132 REST A WHILE. 

but a special halo encircles the one we are 
now to consider. For His declaration, '' I Am 
the Resurrection and the Life/' is a promise 
not only for the supreme hour of existence, 
when we pass from this world on to the world 
Beyond, but, also, for every hour of our 
earthly pilgrimage, if we have accepted His 
offer of being Light to our darkness. And 
this blessed Light of Life in the soul is not 
a dazzling mid-day glare, it is the tender 
soft radiance like that which rests on the 
eastern hills at sunrise, and glows in the 
rosy beams of morning. 

In truth, no metaphor is more full of Res- 
urrection gladness than the one contained 
in sunrise. Recall for a moment the won- 
der of day-dawn as you have watched its 
approach during some of your mountain 
jaunts, and you will realize how full a par- 
able it is of the coming of God's Light into 
the night of a sinful soul. The scene I 
mean is one of those dawns where the less- 
er hills, ravines, and deep gorges of clefted 
rock are wrapped in the shadows of gray 
mist, and lay like Lazarus in the dark tomb 
of night, while beyond them the shadowy 
outline of distant peaks and far-away moun- 



THE ''I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 133 

tain summits are dimly revealed against the 
background of sky — looking in the mystery 
of the half light like mourners robed in 
black, — waiting to be joined by the lowlands, 
also veiled in shadow and mist, as they 
stretch out from the base of the hills. But 
when the first beam of the rising sun flashes 
through the gloom of this vast tomb of 
shadow, darkness, and mist, you know how 
in a moment all is changed. It is as though 
some mighty power had rolled the stone 
from the sepulchre which held bound in 
grave-clothes the Light; while some mighty 
voice called: " Lazarus, come forth !" And 
in reply, quicker than thought, the sable 
robes of darkness vanish, while the moun- 
tains appear calm and steadfast, bathed 
in the deep beauty of far-away hill-purple ; 
and the lowlands are flooded with the gold- 
en light of early morning, as overhead the 
gray clouds are changed into airy, fleecy 
forms, kissed by a hundred rosy tints of 
dimpling loveliness, and seeming verily like 
angels shining in the light of God. Mean- 
while softly, silently as they came, the dark- 
ness and the shadows, the mist and the 
mystery of night are buried in the caves of 



134 



REST A WHILE. 



the earth, from whence they too will hear a 
Resurrection call. 

Wonderful and beautiful as are such reve- 
lations of Nature, they are as nothing when 
compared with the glory and wonder of the 
spiritual sunrise, which heralds the Resur- 
rection of a soul from the dark tomb of sin, 
or from the shadows and mists of doubt 
and fear. The path of prayer is the way 
that leads to such a resurrection as this last, 
for in answer to prayer He who is " the 
Resurrection and the Life '' " restoreth the 
soul." In our contemplation of Christ's " I 
Am " titles, we have found so many helpful 
thoughts in Canon Westcott's studies on 
them, I will again glean for you one or two 
more pages from his volume, of which the 
key-note is, " Christ the Resurrection of the 
dead, Christ the Life of the living." Truths 
he illustrates by the raising of Lazarus, for 
he writes : " If we study the whole narrative 
carefully we shall perceive that from first 
to last this history is a revelation of death 
and life ; a help given to us through which 
we may, however imperfectly and momen- 
tarily, yet truly, rise to a better under- 
standing of the nature of ourselves, than the 



THE*' I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 



135 



common experience of the visible world can 
furnish. It seems to say that life in its 
fulness flows from what men call death, and 

death from what men call life Thus 

by every detail of the history we are encour- 
aged to look below the surface of things, 
to realize how life, true life, triumphs over 
death and even through death ; to regard 
the restoration of Lazarus not as a mere 
marvel only, but as a type of the constant 
action of God, who preserves through every 
vicissitude all that which makes us what 
we are ; to know by that staying of the 
power of corruption, by that call to renewed 
activity, that Christ, as He is the Food to 
support us, the Light to guide us, is also 
the Life — infinite and eternal — by which we 
live.'' 

'^ So we come to the second chief thought 
suggested by the words : *• I Am the resur- 
rection and the life' The Resurrection and 
the Life is not simply through Christ, but 
in Christ. I Am He said, and not I prom- 
ise, or I bring, or I accomplish, 'I Am the 
resurrection and the life.' And when we fix 
our attention upon the words from this 
point of sight, we see at once that they 



136 REST A WHILE. 

include deeper mysteries than we can at 
present fathom, that they open out glimpses 
of some more sublime form of being than 
we can at present apprehend, that they 
gather up in one final utterance to the world 
what had been said before darkly and par- 
tially of the union of the believer with his 
Lord, and of the consequences which pro- 
ceed from it.'' 

" But though we can perhaps do no more, 
it is well that we should at least devoutly 
recognize that we do stand here in the face 
of a great mystery, which if indistinct from 
excess of glory, yet even now ennobles, con- 
secrates, transfigures life : which does even 
now help us to feel where is the answer to 
difficulties which our own age has first been 
called to meet ; which gives a vital reality 
to much of the language of Holy Scripture 
which we are tempted to treat as simply 
metaphorical." 

^^ I Am the resurrectio7t and the life,'' — repeat 
the words, remembering " He quickens us 
not as individual units, but as parts of Him- 
self : He raises us up not to stand alone, but 
as members of His glorified Body. He 
trains us while we are still kept apart from 



THE *'I Ax\l" TITLES OF CHRIST. i^y 

one another by the conditions of mortality 
to reach forward to this loftier fellowship ; 
He communicates to us His flesh, His hu- 
manity, in which is the fulness of union ; 
He warns us that selfishness, isolation, is 
death. This being so, we come to under- 
stand, so far as man can understand such 
teaching, what St. Paul means when he 
speaks of the Christian as being in Christy 
living in Christ, sanctified in Christ j when he 
transfers to the individual believer all the 
acts of Christ ; when he argues that he 
himself died with Christ and was raised 
again with Christ. For all this is but a 
writing out at length of the Lord's own 
words, ^ / A7n the resurrectio7i and the life! 

'' How it is that the fruits of affection and 
kinsmanship can be taken up into and har- 
monized with a new form of existence, we 

cannot tell It is enough for us that, 

as Christ's words assure us, human ties 
have a living permanence in Him : that 
they survive the transitory sphere in which 
they have here found their growth : that 
they await a resurrection in which they 

shall be seen in their true glory 

Meanwhile, let us not attempt impatiently 



138 REST A WHILE. 

to affect a fulness of knowledge which we 
have not. Let us not rest in self-compla- 
cency at the point of spiritual perception 
which we have reached. Let us declare 
boldly and sincerely what we have been en- 
abled to learn of Christ and then wait for 
wider intelligence. If we believe in a liv- 
ing Christ, the Son of God, that faith con- 
tains treasures of wisdom which later expe- 
rience will teach us to make ourown. The 
years as they pass may leave us a sad inher- 
itance of weakness and death ; but in due 
time Christ will reveal Himself to us, even 
here, in this chequered scene of loss and 
conflict, as the Resurrection and the Life, 
the Life whereby He quickens us for new 
labor, the Resurrection whereby He gives 
back to us the past transfigured for nobler 
uses." 

As a sequel to the foregone thoughts, and 
a sure promise of fulfilment of the Resur- 
rection Hopes we have been considering, 
like a Hand of tender Love outstretched 
from Heaven to earth for our guidance, 
comes our Lord's next ' I Am * assurance, 
'* I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 



^39 



Life." The mere fact that these words 
occur in among the consolation verses of 
the ^' Let not your heart be troubled " 
chapter, will make them especially dear, and 
welcome to you, now, when you are passing 
through the ordeal of doubt. 

'' I A771 the Way'' — Yes, dear H , and 

Christ is the only Way out of your present 
gloom. This you will clearly see if you re- 
member all Jesus said to His disciples on 
the eve of His Passion, He still says to us 
now in every crisis of our soul's history. 
These words are also peculiarly applicable 
to your mental difficulties, for the special 
trial the disciples were undergoing at the 
time of their utterance was " the trial which 
belongs to every period of transition." And 
" it was the trial which presses and will 
press most heavily upon our generation " — - 
hence you need not wonder it has touched 
you. — '^ And if we in our turn would face it, 
and come out victors from the contest, it 
can only be by listening with absolute de- 
votion to the revelation of Christ which 
makes clear to us that there is a 'purpose 
running through all the ages and broaden- 
ing upward to the threshold of a Father's 



I40 REST A WHILE. 

home ; that there is an abiding reality un- 
derneath the shifting phenomena of the 
world which cannot be lost ; that there is a 
law of coherence, of progress, of growth 
uniting in a harmonious whole movements, 
efforts, energies which appear to us to be 
broken, discordant, conflicting ; it can only 
be by claiming for our own direct instruc- 
tion, as charged with a new meaning and 
reaching to new realms, the words with 
which Christ answered the appeal of St. 
Thomas: ' I Am the Way, the Truth ^ and the 
Life : no 77ian co7neth to the Father but by Me' " 
"' Even then the old paths appear to be lost 
in a wild maze. Eager voices call us to 
follow this track or that. If we pause for a 
moment we are at once left behind by our 
fellow-travellers. There is no repose, no 
strength of quietness, no patient waiting 
for fuller knowledge. We are almost driven 
to ask if there be any way, any end at 
all before us ? And if there be, whether 
it is not hopeless for us to look for it? At 
such times let us hearken to Christ's voice, 
/ Am the Way, and then purpose and order 
will come back to the world." — And "though 
we may not be able to see more than a few 



THE "I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. j^i 

steps before us, if these lie not on self, but 
on Christ, we can have no doubt of the 
issue. We may not be able to reconcile the 
movements of others with our own, but if 
we know that at each moment they rest on 
Christ, we know that their way is the same 
as ours. We may not be able to tell whith- 
er we are going, but it is enough that 
Christ has bridged over the chasm between 
earth and heaven, and that as we advance 
along the way which He made, and which 
He is, we shall sooner or later be admitted 
to the vision of God and reflect the bright- 
ness of His glory. Hence, when the trial is 
sorest, the words of Christ, I Am the Trtcth^ 
at once lift us into that loftier region where- 
in no doubt or falsehood enters. Christ 
the Son of God, and the Son of Man ; 
Christ the Uniter of the seen and the un- 
seen ; Christ the Reconciler of the sinful 
and the sinless : He is the Truth. Yet the 
claims of the world upon us are so many 
and so urgent ; the triumphs of physical 
science are so unquestionable and so wide ; 
the marvels of that which we can see and 
feel are so engrossing and inexhaustible : 
that it is not surprising that we should 



142 REST A WHILE. 

be tempted to rest in them : to take the 
visible for our heritage : to close up our 
souls against those subtle questionings, 
whereby they strive after the knowledge 
of that which no eye hath seen or ear 
heard or hand felt, that life of the plant, of 
the man, of the world, which comes as we 
know not and goes as we know not. But 
strong as the charm may be to lull to sleep 
that which is noblest within us, the w^ords 
of Christ, ^ / Am the Life,' can break it. 
We feel that that thought of a divine per- 
sonality underlying outward things, quick- 
ening them, shaping them, preserving 
through dissolution the sum of their gath- 
ered wealth, answers to a want within us. 
It brings back to us the assurance that 
death cannot prevail for ever. It opens in- 
finite visions of hope, which if they stir us 
to loftier endeavor, strengthen us also to bear 
without despondency disappointment and 
failure for the moment. In their light we 
can believe without striving impatiently to 
unravel the mysteries by which we are en- 
compassed : we can work, and while we 
work, we can believe and know that it is 
good for a man that he should both hope and 



THE *'I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. i^^ 

quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. .... 
And while the last and largest fulfilments 
of Christ's words and Christ's work, we 
cannot as yet define clearly, we can turn to 
those things which are plainly w^ritten for 
us. We have been placed upon the Way. 
We have been taught the Truth. We have 
been made partakers of the Life. The 
Way must be traversed ; the Truth must 
be pursued ; the Life must be realized. 
Then cometh the end. Our pilgrimage, 
long as It may be or short, if we have 
walked in Christ, will leave us by the throne 
of God ; our partial knowledge, if we have 
looked upon all things in Christ, will be lost 
in open sight ; our little lives perfected, 
purified, harmonized in Him Whom we have 
trusted, will become in due order parts of 
one Divine Life, when God is all in all." 

The last of the / Am titles, recorded by 
St. John, is a fitting sequel with which to 
close this meditation ; for the revelation of 
Christ as the *^ True Vine of which we are 
the branches," "brings into one vivid image 
the various lines of thought w^e have hith- 
erto pursued separately. 



144 



REST A WHILE. 



^^ Yet our loftiest speculations fall far short 
of the mystery involved in this oneness of 
the Vine and the branches, according to 
which, as St. Paul says, the believer fills up 
what is lacking in that which Christ hath 
suffered and made possible for him. But 
when we can as yet see little, we can trust 
entirely ; and it is in this thought, that 
Christians do in some sense carry out, em- 
body, complete the work of Christ through 
His presence, that we find our confidence : 
our strength : our hope Our confi- 
dence, because we are sure that if we offer 
ourselves, as we are, to God in Christ, God 
will find an ofiice for us to discharge. Our 
strength, because we know that that lives 
on with an unending growth which He has 
received and hallowed. Our hope, because 
we believe in due time, sooner or later, oth- 
ers will gather the produce which we have 
prepared, and bless Him for labors to which 
we shall see no harvest.'* 

" For we must not forget that as yet there 
remains a season of trial and pain. . . . 
Temptation will come ; failure will come ; 
disappointment will come. There will be 
the sharp sorrow, when something is taken 



THE ''I AM" TITLES OF CHRIST. 145 

away on which we have prided ourselves. 
There will be the bitter reproach when w^e 
look back on what we have lost through 
our own neglect. There will be the blank 
regret, when the end for which we have 
worked patiently is hidden from our eyes. 
But deeper than all sorrow, stronger than 
all reproach, more sovereign than all regret, 
the words will remain with us, 'I Am the 
Vine^ a7id My Father is the husbandman. I Am 
the Vine^ ye are the branches. Herein^ that 
is, — in your abiding in Me, — is My Father 
glorified^ that ye bear much fruit' " 

And in this abiding remember, dear H , 

'^ two prayers are united in one." Yes — 

** Two prayers, dear Lord, in one — 
Give me both less and more : 
Less of the impatient world, and more of Thee : 
Less of myself, and all that heretofore 
Made me to slip where ready feet do run. 
And held me back from where I fain would be — 
Kept me, my Lord, from Thee." 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 



147 



Jesus said : '* If ye shall ask anything in My Name 
1 will do it." — John xiv. lo. 

** O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is Thy Name." 
— Ps. viii. I. 

* ' A strong Tower, the righteous runneth into it, 
and is safe." — Ps. xviii. lo. 

** Then, fainting soul, arise and sing ; 
Mount, but be sober on the wing ; 
Mount up, for Heaven is won by prayer. 
Be sober, for thou art not There J' 



148 



VI. 
THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 

IN this meditation I will try, dear H— — , 
to suggest several replies to the ques- 
tions you ask regarding prayer, and the 
place it fills in the Christianas life. The 
first—** What is prayer in the Name of 
Jesus ? '* we have already considered, hence 
I will only refer to it by reminding you 
that Christ's words : ** Verily, verily, I say 
unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Fa- 
ther in My Name^ that will I do," are among 
the most precious promises contained in 
the Gospel. They set a sacred seal, as it 
were, to the blessed truth that through and 
in Christ we have become the Heavenly 
Father's well-beloved children; and thus we 
may pray to Him — in Christ's Name— with 
the sweet confidence which springs out of 
the assurance, that the grace and glory with 
which the Father is well pleased in His 

(149) 



I JO I^EST A WHILE. 

Son, is by imputation and in effect, hence- 
forth bestowed upon us, since Christ said : 
" The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have 
given them " (John xvii. 13). 

In the presence of such a gift well may 
we ask in humble wonder : 

** Jesus, why dost Thou love me so? 
W^hat hast Thou seen in me 
To make my happiness so great, 
So dear to Thee ?" 

Looking over your list, I find the meaning 
of the questions it contains so much alike, 
my reply to one will to some extent hold 
an answer for all. I may, too, fail in giving 
some special difficulty the consideration you 
desire; indeed, this liability between friends 
of focusing light on different points of a 
subject, in which both are interested, is al- 
ways a trying part of the discussion of spir- 
itual truth-~-for — we do see, even truth, so 
differently. Nevertheless, this danger — like 
so many others, has a bright side, for surely 
it teaches us charity, enforcing as it does, 
the ^' judge not" command — and the truth 
that— 

** Varied modes of creatureship abound 
Implying just as varied intercourse 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. j^i 

For each with the Creator of them all, 
Each has his own mind and no others.'* 

Nature supplies endless illustrations of this 
*many views' — and yet one central object, 
for Nature so seldom shows us the whole 
of a thing at one glance. 

In proof of this, think of a mountain- 
slope, rising up before you in massive 
grandeur as you approach it ; revealing 
with every onward step a shifting scene of 
changing outline, and varying tints of light 
and shade, and yet despite this apparent 
change you know between the foldings of 
the hills the same valleys are nestled, the 
same brooks and rivulets go flowing on 
their way ; the same forest trees lift their 
strong branches skyward during the wdld 
storms of winter or the tranquil calm of 
summer. And thus prayer fills always an 
unchanging place in Christian growth, 
though as we strive to solve the perplexi- 
ties which involve certain aspects of it, to 
my mind, the light may fall in broad beams 
of illumination on some special point, over 
which, to your mind, shadows may continue 
to lurk — even on till the blessed hour w^hen 
" all shadows will flee away." 



152 



REST A WHILE. 



To return to your questions, the three, 
which immediately follow the one alluded 
to, are peculiarly marked by answers which 
interblend the queries : ^ How is prayer re- 
ligion in action ? ' — ' Of what does prayer 
consist V — And, ' Why is it called one form 
of hard work?' The deep significance of 
my three-fold reply you will straightway 
know, dear H , if you obey Christ's com- 
mand, " Ask, and ye shall receive." For to 
ask, implies an act on your part by which 
you place yourself in real and effective com- 
munication with God, and to do this, is 
something that demands a strong effort of 
concentrated will-power. A double effort, 
if prayer proves to be to you, — as it does to 
so many, — like sorrow in the doubt it sug- 
gests of the possibility of God's love for 
you as an individual unit : for while it is 
easy to grasp the idea that we are among 
the sheep of His fold, to some natures, it 
requires a strong mental effort to realize 
the wonderful truth, that our Heavenly Fa- 
ther knoweth us each by name, for, though 

*' One star differeth from another star 
In glory and in use : yet all are stars 
Of the illimitable Home of God : 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. j^^ 

And every one has its own name and place 
Distinguished." 

While this blessed knowledge grovv^s fuller, 
and clearer, as we approach nearer to God, 
and the Christ-like life on which He smiles, 
it will — as long as we stay in this world — 
be a truth difficult to appropriate. A fre- 
quent experience in seasons of great trial, 
or in minutes of earnest prayer explains 
this ; for you know how at such times when 
our sorrow and our prayer seem vast mat- 
ters to us, we suddenly become conscious 
of the thousands ignorant of them, and out- 
side the thousands there are, too, indifferent 
billions. No wonder, in the presence of the 
thought of this great multitude, our little 
insignificant individuality seems lost, till it 
becomes well-nigh impossible to grasp the 
conception of a separate and personal rela- 
tionship to God through Christ ; almost 
impossible to believe, that our Father in 
Heaven in very truth knows every detail 
of our trouble, and hears every whispered 
word of our prayer, as distinctly as though 
there were no other human being in all the 
vride world. This passes our finite compre- 
hension, yet it is true, for the billions ar-; 

7* 



154 



REST A WHILE. 



not typical of Him. Indeed, the nearest 
and closest friend, with striving love and 
sympathy, only gets a little way towards 
the likeness of God's compassion, and will- 
ingness to hear and answer prayer. This, 
I repeat, is hard to comprehend, but when 
at rare moments we do feel it, the marvel 
and the blessedness make it difficult for us 
to realize anything else ; though for that 
matter, it is always hard to keep both God 
and the world reaL As we seek to do it, 
we find the work of controlling heart as well 
as mind is no slight task, especially in the 
development of that part of the soul's train- 
ing which is connected with prayer, where 
it must combine the spiritual conditions 
that are the halves of a complete whole. 
They consist of obedience and of the work 
by which faith is made perfect ; and con- 
formity to the Divine Will is the Ladder of 
ascent by which faith gains at last the top- 
most round, of the many rounds of the 
Heavenward Ladder, each marked by a 
prayer, and a careful, patient step upward. 
This is one of the metaphors, that lifts us, 
while it bows us down, for the more we 
know and love Christ, the higher we ascend, 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER, ijj 

and yet, as we rke we know more of our 
imperfections — which is a humbling knowl- 
edge — we also know more of the path of 
prayer, and the faith-tests that encompass 
it, and which if faithfully encountered will 
result at last in the change from mortality 
to immortality, from the seen to the unseen, 
from imperfection to perfection. For '^ if ye 
be willing and obedient," '' saith the Lord : 
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
be white as snow ; though they be red like 
crimson, they shall be as wool " (Is. i. i8). 

Prayer, being, in the name of Christ, the 
way to this crowning of faith, certainly you 

are right, dear H , to desire all possible 

knowledge of wherein consists ^' the effect- 
ual and fervent prayer which availeth with 
God," and which is " emphatically religion 
in action." A truth enforced by the words 
of the late Bishop of Salisbury, that " no 
man was likely to do much good in prayer 
who did not begin by looking upon it in 
the light of a work, to be prepared for, and 
persevered in with all the earnestness which 
we bring to bear upon subjects which are, 
in our opinion, at once most interesting and 
most necessary." Canon Liddon tells us 



iS6 



REST A WHILE. 



" this will indeed appear, if, looking to an 
act of real prayer, we take it to pieces, for 
we find it consists always of three separate 
forms of activity which, in the case of dif- 
ferent persons, co-exist in very varying de- 
grees of intensity, but which are found, in 
some degree, in all who pray, whenever they 
pray. To pray, is first of all to put the un- 
derstanding in motion, and to direct it upon 
the Highest Object to Which it can possibly 
address itself, the Infinite God. And thus 
any common act of real prayer keeps, not 
the imagination, but the understanding, oc- 
cupied earnestly, absorbingly, under the 
guidance of faith from first to last.'' 

'^ Next, to pray is to put the affections in 

motion ; it is to open the heart And 

this movement of the affections is sustained 
throughout the act of prayer.'' 

The third form of activity "is to put the 
will in motion, just as decidedly as we do 
when we sit down to read hard, or to walk 
up a steep hill against time."— As contain- 
ing a still more pronounced reply to your 
question observe the following extract : 
"The amount of will which we severally 
carry into the act of prayer is the ratio of 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 157 

its sincerity; and when prayer is at once 
real and prolonged, the demands which it 
makes upon our power of concentrating de- 
termination into a specific and continuous 
act are very considerable indeed. Now, 
these three ingredients of prayer are also 
ingredients in all real w^ork, whether of the 
brains or of the hands. The sustained 
effort of the intelligence and of the will 
must be seconded in work no less than in 
prayer by a movement of the affections, if 
work is to be really successful. A man 
must love his work to do it well/* I think 

now, dear H , you will understand how 

prayer is well called religion in action. To 
a certain extent you know also in what it 
consists, but to fully grasp its wide com- 
prehensiveness, you need to ponder the ex- 
amples of prayer recorded in both the Old 
and New Testament. It is a record which 
begins early, for when sin entered the heart 
the need of prayer began. That the Patri- 
archs recognized this and also what the 
spirit of prayer consisted in, we know 
through the window opened into their 
lives, which shows us " they walked with 
God." Words which express a nearness 



158 



REST A WHILE. 



of communion with the Heavenly Father 
kindred to that we now refer to when we 
say the soul abides in the attitude of prayer. 
"Later, after the Mosaic Law was given, 
v/hen the idea and range of sin had been 
deepened and extended in the mind of 
Israel, we find prayer organized in a sys- 
tem of sacrifices, suited to various wants 
and moods of the human soul, consciously 
dealing with its God as the King both of 
the sacred nation and of individual con- 
science. Later still, in the Psalter, prayer 
— the purest, the loftiest, the most passion- 
ate, — took shape in imperishable forms. 
And when at length a new revelation was 
made in Jesus Christ, there was little to 
add to what was already believed as to the 
power and obligation of prayer, beyond re- 
vealing the secret of its acceptance. Our 
Lord's precepts and example are sufficiently 
emphatic ; and His apostles appear to rep- 
resent prayer not so much as a practice of 
the Christian life as its very breath and 
instinctive movement. The Christian must 
be ^continuing instant in prayer'; he must 
' pray without ceasing.' " As an illustration 
of this, I beg you to give careful and devout 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 



159 



Study to the special prayers mentioned in 
the Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles. 
They contain, also, a full reply to your wish 
to know in what prayer consists. I point 
you to a few especially sacred, because 
closely associated with our Saviour's own 
use — and thus for us they are indeed model 
prayers. Among the most precious are 
those recorded in Matt. xi. 25, and in John 
xi. 41, 42. These both give us an example 
of thanksgiving for God's abounding mercy 
and willingness to hear and answer prayer. 
Read and ponder also the 17th of John, a 
chapter dedicated to the recital of Christ's 
prayer for Himself, His apostles, and all 
believers. As a guide for prayer in hours 
of deepest anguish, I need hardly remind 
you of the sacred words recorded in Matt, 
xxvi. 29, and Luke xxii. 42. Here we find 
in one brief sentence the signature of all 
true prayer — '^T/iy will, not mine.'' Well- 
nigh as brief is the record (Matt, xxvii. 46) 
of the height of soul-agony caused by the 
hiding of the Father's face, and hence the 
suspension of Divine consolation. You will 
also find much profit from careful ponder- 
ing of each separate clause of the " Lord's 



l6o REST A WHILE. 

Prayer/' — And you will not overlook the 
blessed example of forgiveness taught by 
the petition contained in Luke (xxiii. 34). 
But I will not tarry to note the many other 
prayers which are examples for us to follow, 
and which will answer your question re- 
garding the limitations of prayer. As you 
study them you will straightway observe 
they are in no way narrowed down to the 
mere asking for what one wants. Observe 
also ^' in the larger sense of the word, as the 
spiritual language of the soul, prayer is in- 
tercourse with God, often seeking no end 
beyond the pleasure of such intercourse. 
It is praise ; it is congratulation ; it is ado- 
ration of the Infinite Majesty; it is colloquy 
in which the soul engages with the All- 
wise, and the All-holy; it is basking in the 
sunshine, varied by ejaculations of thank- 
fulness to the Sun of Righteousness for His 
light and His warmth. In this larger sense, 
the earlier part of the Te Deum is prayer as 
much as the latter part; the earliest and latest 
clauses of the Gloria in Excelsis as truly as 
the central ones ; the Sanctus or the Jubi- 
late no less than the Litany ; the Magnificat 
as certainly as the fifty-first Psalm." 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. jgj 

The question — ' What tangible results fol- 
low prayer ? ' — is a gravely earnest one at all 
times ; but especially so in this positive and 
practical age. That you may know with no 
dimness of mental vision what at least some 
of these results are, consider first the effects 
which prayer has upon the mind and char- 
acter of the person who prays; effects which 
we Christians believe to be chiefly due to 
the transforming grace of God, given in 
answer to prayer. " Thus it has been ob- 
served that persons without natural ability 
have, through the earnestness of their de- 
votional habits, acquired in time powers of 
sustained thought, and an accuracy and 
delicacy of intellectual touch, which would 
not else have belonged to them. The moral 
effects of devotion are naturally more strik- 
ing and abundant. Habitual prayer con- 
stantly confers decision on the wavering, 
and energy on the listless, and calmness on 
the excitable, and disinterestedness on the 
selfish. It braces the moral nature by trans- 
porting it into a clear, invigorating, un- 
earthly atmosphere : it builds up the moral 
life, insensibly but surely remedying its de- 
ficiencies, and strengthening its weak points, 



1 62 REST A WHILE. 

till there emerges a comparatively symmet- 
rical and consistent whole, the excellence 
of which all must admit, though its secret 
is known only to those who know it by ex- 
perience. Akin to the moral are the social 
effects of prayer. It gilds social intercourse 
and conduct with a tenderness, an unobtru- 
siveness, a sincerity, a frankness, an even- 
ness of temper, a cheerfulness, a collected- 
ness, a constant consideration for others, 
united to a simple loyalty to truth and 
duty, which leavens and strengthens socie- 
ty." This subject — the social aspect of 
prayer — is a very broad one, embracing as 
it does — " the family; the nation; the race; 
and the Church " — all of which revealed by 
Christianity rest on the One foundation — 
for, " Other foundation can no man lay than 
that which is laid, eveit Jesus Christ'' (i Cor. 
iii. ii). And yet each has a special Bible 
verse that applies to it alone. I note them 
for you. The Family — " I bow my knees 
unto the Father, from Whom every Family 
in heaven and on earth is named '' (Eph. 
iii. 14). The Nation — '' The nations shall 
walk amidst the light — of the city of God — 
and the kings of the earth do bring their 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 



163 



glory into it '' (Apoc. xxi. 24). The Race — 
" God made of one every nation of men for 
to dwell on all the face of the earth, having 
determined their appointed seasons and the 
bounds of their habitations that they should 
seek God" (Acts xvii. 26). The Church — • 
" The Church, which is His Body '* (Eph. 
i. 22). 

You will find this subject dwelt on in de- 
tail by Canon Westcott in his recent vol- 
ume, ^^ Social Aspects of Christianity.'* The 
important thought it contains for our daily 
life is that prayer develops the spirit of 
universal brotherhood — for ^* in Christ all 
men are brethren"; if we once enter into 
vital relationship with this blessed truth it 
will transform for us the meaning of life. 
For " according as its influence prevails all 
life becomes an energy of fellowship with 
men in God, with men not as chosen by 
any capricious or personal rule, but with 
men simply as men. In this way the spirit 
of brotherhood quickens the spirit of son- 
ship. The love which goes out from us 
comes back to us multiplied a thousand- 
fold." This recognition of ^ oneness in Him,' 
our Saviour, is taught by the very first words 



x64 REST A WHILE. ' - ^ 

of His prayer — " Our Father ^ Sometimes 
we hear the wish expressed, that there was 
a universal sign, by which without utter- 
ance. Christians could immediately recog- 
nize one another as " members of Christ." 
There are those who believe that prayer 
sets such a sign upon the face. And truly, 
I think it is not too much to say that prayer 
has even physical results. " The counten- 
ance of a Fra Angelico reflects his spirit 
no less than does his art : the bright eye, 
the pure, elevated expression, speak for 
themselves.'* You know also, how it was 
said of Keble that *^ in his later years his 
face was like that of an illuminated clock ; 
the color and gilding had long faded away 
from the hands and figures, but the ravages 
of time were more than compensated for, 
by the light which shone from within. This 
was what might have been expected in an 
aged man of great piety ; to have lived in 
spirit on Mount Tabor during the years of 
a long lite, is to have caught in its closing 
hours some rays of the glory of the Trans- 
figuration." 

I will not tarry to illustrate this farther, 
it will be fully brought out in our medita- 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 



165 



tion on " Meeting Angels." — Then, too, 
without dwelling on this subject, I think 
we can both recall dear faces that smiled 
on us with a spiritual brightness, " like the 
first burst of sunshine after rain/' 

Returning to the barriers against the effi- 
cacy of prayer w^hich you call problems, the 
first to which men point is wont to be the 
scientific idea of law reigning throughout 
the spiritual as well as the material uni- 
verse. To meet this and other difficulties, 
I again refer to the explanation given by 
Liddon. After stating the modern idea 
that we have attained to a wider belief than 
the old theological conception of the Bible 
and the Church, which assigns to law and 
order a higher place in our minds than can 
belong to a personal will, he asks : ^^ Does 
not the very word law, by reason of its 
majestic and imposing associations, here 
involve us in some indistinctness of thought ? 
What do we mean by law ? When we speak 
of a law of nature are we thinking of some 
self-sustained invisible force, of which we 
can give no account except that here it. is, a 
matter of experience ? Or do we mean by a 
law of nature only a principle which, as our 



x66 REST A WHILE. 

observation shows us, appears to govern par- 
ticular actions of the Almighty Agent Who 
made and Who upholds the universe? If, 
however, we mean by law the observed regu- 
larity with which God works in nature as in 
grace ; then in our contact with law, we 
are dealing, not with a brutal, unintelligent, 
unconquerable force, but with the free will 
of an intelligent and moral Artist, Who 
works in His perfect freedom, with sus- 
tained and beautiful symmetry. And where 
is the absurdity of asking Him to hold His 
hand, or to hasten His work ? He to Whom 
we pray may be trusted to grant or to re- 
fuse a prayer, as may seem best to the high- 
est wisdom and the truest love. And if 
He grant it. He is not without resources ; 
even although we should have asked Him 
to suspend what we call a natural law. 
Can He not then provide for the freedom 
of His action without violating its order ? 
Can He not supersede a lower rule of work- 
ing by the intervention of a higher? If 
He really works at all ; if something that 
is neither moral nor intelligent has not 
usurped His throne, — it is certain that * the 
thing that is done upon earth He doeth it 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. jgy 

Himself '; and that it is, therefore, as con- 
sistent with reason as with reverence to 
treat Him as being a free Agent, Who is not 
really tied and bound by the intellectual 
abstractions, with which finite intellects 
would fain annihilate the freedom of His 
action. No ; to pray for rain or sunshine, 
for health or food, is just as reasonable as 
to pray for gifts which the soul only can 
receive — increased love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. All 
such prayers presuppose the truth that God 
is not the slave of His own rules of action ; 
that He can innovate upon His work with- 
out forfeiting His perfection ; that law is 
only our way of conceiving of His regular- 
ized working, and not an external force 
which governs and moulds what we recog- 
nize as His work. It dissolves into thin 
air, as we look hard at it, this fancied barr 
rier of inexorable law ; and as the mist 
clears off, beyond there is the throne of the 
Moral King of the universe, in Whose eyes 
material symmetry is as nothing when com- 
pared with the spiritual well-being of His 
moral creatures.*' 

" A second barrier to the efficacy of prayer 



1 68 REST A WHILE. 

is sometimes discovered in the truth that 
all which comes to pass is fore-determined 
in the predestination of God. Where, then, 
is there any room for the effect of prayer ? 
Can it be conceived that the erring under- 
standing and finite will of the creature will 
be allowed to impose its decisions on the 
infallible Mind and resistless determina- 
tions of God ? Surely, if we are to go on 
praying, after recognizing the Sovereignty 
of God, we must give up the notion of ex- 
erting a real influence upon the Divine 
Will ; we must content ourselves with resig- 
nation, with bringing our minds into con- 
formity with that which, as a matter of fact, 
is quite beyond the range of our influence.'* 
" This language does but carry us into 
one department of the old controversy be- 
tween the defenders of the Sovereignty of 
God on the one side, and the advocates of 
the free will of man on the other. The very 
idea of God, as it occurs to the human 
mind, and the distinct statements of revela- 
tion, alike represent the Divine Will as ex- 
erting sovereign and resistless sway. If it 
were otherwise, God would not be Almighty, 
that is, He would not be God. On the 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 169 

Other hand, our daily experience and the 
language of Scripture both assure us that 
man is literally a free agent : his freedom 
is the very ground of his moral and relig- 
ious responsibility. Are these two truths 
hopelessly incompatible with each other ? 
So it may seem at first sight : and if we 
escape the danger of denying the one in the 
supposed interests of the other, if we shrink 
from sacrificing God's sovereignty to man's 
free will with Arminius, and from sacrific- 
ing man's freedom to God's sovereignty 
with Calvin, we can only express a wise 
ignorance by saying, that to us they seem 
like parallel lines which must meet at a 
point in eternity, far beyond our present 
range of view. We do know, however, that 
being both true, they cannot really contra- 
dict each other; and that in some manner, 
which we cannot formulate, the Divine Sov- 
ereignty must not merely be compatible 
with, but must even imply the perfect free- 
dom of created wills. God orders all that 
happens to us, and, in virtue of His infinite 
knowledge, by eternal decrees. But He 
also says to us, in the plainest language, 
that He does answer prayer, and that prac- 
8 



lyo REST A WHILE. 

tically His dealings with us are governed 
in matters of the greatest importance as 
well as of the least, by the petitions which 
we address to Him. What if prayers and 
actions, to us at the moment perfectly spon- 
taneous, are eternally foreseen and included 
within the all-embracing Predestination of 
God, as factors and causes, working out 
that final result which, beyond all dispute, 
is the product of His good pleasure ? 
Whether I open my mouth or lift my hand, 
is, before my doing it, strictly within the 
jurisdiction and power of my personal will ; 
but however I may decide, my decision, so 
absolutely free to me, will have been already 
incorporated by the All-seeing, All-control- 
ling Being as an integral part, however in- 
significant, of His one all-embracing pur- 
pose, leading on to effects and causes be- 
yond itself. Prayer, too, is only a foreseen 
action of man which, together with its re- 
sults, is embraced in the eternal predestina- 
tion of God. To us this or that blessing 
may be strictly contingent on our praying 
for it ; but our prayer is nevertheless so 
far from necessarily introducing change in- 
to the purpose of the Unchangeable, that it 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. jyi 

has been all along taken, so to speak, into 
account by Him. If, then, with ^ the Father 
of Lights ' there is in this sense * no va- 
riableness, neither shadow of turning,' it is 
not therefore irrational to pray for specific 
blessings, as we do in the Litany, because 
God works out His plans not merely in us, 
but by us ; and we may dare to say that 
that which is to us a free self-determina- 
tion, may be not other than a foreseen ele- 
ment of His work.'* 

This is a long extract, but demanded by 
your question, even though it leaves only a 
brief space in which to remind you that 
*^ every prayer for specific blessings in a 
Christian soul is tacitly, if not expressly, 
conditioned by the three conditions given 
at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer — ' Hal- 
lowed be Thy Name— Thy Kingdom come 
— Thy Will be done/ " In effect these three 
conditions are only one. Remember also 
" the great masters and teachers of Chris- 
tian doctrine have always found in prayer 

their highest source of illumination 

And the greatest practical resolves that 
have enriched and beautified human life in 
Christian times have been arrived at in 



172 



REST A WHILE. 



prayer And thus it is that prayer is 

of such vital importance to the well-being of 
the soul. Study may be dispensed with by 
those who work with their hands for God : 
handiwork may be dispensed with by those 
w^ho seek Him in books and in thought. 
But prayer is indispensable : alike for work- 
ers and students, alike for scholar and peas- 
ant, alike for the educated and the unlet- 
tered. For we all have to seek God*s Face 
above ; we all have souls to be sanctified 
and saved ; we all have sins and passions 
to beat back and to conquer. And these 
things are achieved pre-eminently by prayer, 
which is properly and representatively the 
action of religion. It is the action where- 
by we men, in all our frailty and defilement, 
associate ourselves with our Divine Advo- 
cate on high, and realize the sublime bond 
which in Him, the One Mediator between 
God and man, unites us in our utter un- 
worthiness to the Strong and All-holy God.'' 
To come into harmony with this spirit of 

prayer you need, dear H , to let your 

heart run out as far as it will to meet the 
Love of God ; for that will soften it ; but 
cause it to reach out after His power also, 



THOUGHTS ON PRAYER. 



173 



for that will strengthen it. In the matter 
of spiritual growth your soul is much like 
a tree, your conception of God, the soil, in 
which the seed of progress is planted. 
Hence, if the soil is all on one side, the 
root will be there, and adverse winds will 
strain fibres which were never meant to sup- 
port a storm on that side. Strive, then, to 
reach out rootlets on each and every side, 
and then leaves of strength and beauty will 
crown the entire tree, just as symmetry 
in your views of God, will crown your life 
with completeness. 

Many other thoughts are suggested by 
this precious subject, but we must leave 
them unnoted — something one of Nature's 
tender emblems will help us to do. For as 
we cannot see the whole of the Alps at 
once, but can only enjoy the part which our 
eye can grasp as nestling in and resting on 
that great incomprehensible mass, so we 
must be content with what we can see of 
prayer in its results. Meanwhile, with 
prayer, as with many and many heavenly; 
truths, we must wait for the broader vision 
of the Hereafter, before we can know them 
in all their full, bountiful beauty and grace, 



174 



REST A WHILE. 



The path that leads to this blessed sequel to 
life's discipline, and narrow visionj I need 
hardly remind you, is one we can only tread 
as we " continue in prayer, and watching in 
the same with thanksgiving'* (Col. iv. i). 
" Therefore — look unto the Lord, wait for 
the God of your salvation. He will hear" 
(Micah vii. 7), and " we go to Him by 
prayer, not by steps.'* 



GRACE FOR GRACE. 



-^75 



** He giveth Grace unto the humble-." — James iv. 6. 

*' All within us good and holy 

Is from God, His precious gift : 
In all our joys, in all our sorrows. 
Wistful hearts to Him we lift." 

Pleading, 

" Give us Grace, and make us Thine." 

*' It is a good thing that the heart be established 
with Grace." — Heb. xiii. 9. 

For, 

** Through Grace joined 
With patience come we at a crown enriched 
With thousand blessings." 



176 



VII. 
GRACE FOR GRACE. 

OF all the brief, yet promise-laden verses 
contained in the Holy Book, I find 
none richer, and fuller, than the assurance, 
that to the earnest soul will be given " Grace 
for Grace/' For surely it holds the essence 
of all healthy spiritual life, since true life 

means growth. Let us, then, dear H , 

seek its message, for there is nothing vague 
and unreal about the fact that it does con- 
tain a message, the entire Gospel being like 
that " leaven, which a woman took, and hid 
in three measures of meal, till the whole 
was leavened " (Matt. xiii. 33). Just here I 
want to linger for a moment while we note 
the significance of those words, and remem- 
ber they occur among a group of metaphors ^ 
of which we are told, " all these things spake 
Jesus in parables." Remember also, the 
helpful lesson for you, and for me, in this 
8* (177) 



lyg REST A WHILE. 

parable is the simple and apparent one 
which crowns it, as a flower crowns a stalk, 
giving forth beauty and fragrance, even 
though we may not understand the why 
of the plant's twisted fibres and rootlets. 
Hence, paying no heed to the discussions 
of the commentators, as to what is meant 
by " the woman '' and " till the whole is 
leavened," we will regard the " measure of 
meal '' as the type of what Olshausen calls, 
** spirit, soul, and body"; in other words, 
the complete self-hood which receives the 
spiritual leaven into the life emblemed by 
the meal, which yields to the fermenting 
and penetrating power of the small begin- 
nings of faith, hope, and love in the soul, 
till they expand and pervade the entire be- 
ing with the leaven of righteousness devel- 
oped by the promised ^* Grace for Grace." 
The first thought as we ponder these multi- 
plying graces is, that in the Bible spiritual 
truth is dealt with much as we deal with 
our most valued treasures of material worth, 
deeming no setting too costly for them. 

This is exemplified by the words, ^^And 
of His fulness have we all received, and 
Grace for Grace^ for the Law was given by 



GRACE FOR GRACE. 



179 



Moses, but Grace and Truth came by Jesus 
Christ " (John i. 16, 17). His Fulness ! 
Grace and Truth ! A golden frame verily. 
Think, it means the fulness of Christ, who 
is the " Light of the World," " The True 
Light "— " The Word made flesh and full 
of Truth and Grace," and then the sequel. 
Such a heritage for us ! — " Power to become 
the sons of God," the only condition, — re- 
ceiving Him by faith, into the heart, which 
then becomes '' the garden of the Lord " 
wherein He plants seeds of the progressive 
graces. You ask what I mean by progres- 
sive graces ? To enumerate would be well- 
nigh impossible, for they are as many and 
as varied as our individual needs. Yet a 
certain similarity runs through them, and 
thus the same word stands as a type of 
them all, for the foundation principle is the 
same, since Grace is developed only in the 
one way, and that is by following Christ with 
an earnestness which prompts an ever on- 
ward and progressive service ; as you will 
know if you " press forward toward the 
prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus." 
But remember, the object desired in the at- 
tainment of that high calling, is not escape 



l8o REST A WHILE. 

from punishment for sin either here or here- 
after, but it is to be saved from sin. And 
the determination to rise above sin points 
to the only path by which we can obtain 
the controlling Grace of righteousness. We 
need to tread very carefully just here, for 
there is danger of our making a mistake in 
regard to what this righteousness really 
consists in, since from a merely surface 
glance the world's estimate of it, and the 
Lord's, seem much alike, whereas they are 
in truth as unlike as daylight and darkness. 
Two words define this great difference, for 
it consists in doing right, and in being right. 
Doing and Being! Like two highways 
starting from the same point, they open out 
before us. The one is a road illumined by 
a light which shines from a lantern supplied 
by the oil of a self-restraint enforced from 
the hope of reward for service rendered, 
and escape from the penalty attendant on 
failure in duty. The other is a road illum- 
ined by rays from the Sun of Righteous- 
ness, which keep warm and glowing in the 
soul the desire of being right, for the sake of 
right, with no thought of either future re- 
ward or punishment, but with many dear 



GRACE FOR GRACE. igl 

and precious thoughts of the High calling 
contained in following Christ, even though 
that following is like striving to reach the 
summit of a mountain peak higher than any 
elevation within the range of earthly meas- 
urement. 

It is well to realize this rather than to 
rest satisfied with one's own standard and 
aims. For it is not enough as a Christian 
to query — ^ Am I coming near enough to 
my conceptions ? ' — but combined with the 
struggle to know more, as well as to be 
more, there must be the additional query: 
* Is my conception as high as it can be?' 
We pilgrims from earth's lowlands cannot 
answer these questions without many a 
weary, hard climb ; for only thus do we learn 
the daily dying to self which is required 
in following Christ. This self-mastery is 
slow work, and so is daily growth and 
conformity to '^ the pattern set in the 
Mount." Yet, though the struggle be severe, 
it is lightened by an always full m.easure of 
help and comfort, for our Example — Christ 
— is always within sight, and how much 
that means ! Yes — always, if we will '^ look 
up." " But it is so humbling," you say, ^^ to 



1 82 REST A WHILE. 

think of your Ideal, and compare it with 
your attainments in likeness to Christ/* 
Truly, thoughts of self are discouraging, 
and I do not wonder they cause you to lose 
heart — nevertheless, there is comfort even 
in this discouragement, if you remember 
when our Lord was on this earth He be- 
stowed His richest blessings on the co7i- 
sciously unworthy^ rather than on those who 
felt they had kept all God's commands 
from their youth up, — and we are not told 
to look at self — but at our Saviour and 
Leader. For, like Alpine climbers, our only 
safety is in steadfastly fixing our gaze on 
Him — our Guide — and following step by 
step the path He trod that He might know 
all the dangers and difficulties that beset 
our way. And we may be sure He will 
never lead us further or faster than we can 
safely follow. He will also supply the 
needed grace at the needed time, whether 
it be the grace required for passive or active 
service ; of faith to walk in the darkness of 
sorrow or in the light of prosperity, — some- 
times a harder thing to do. 

But whatever the leading we are not to 
cumber our service by questions regarding 



GRACE FOR GRACE. 183 

the how and why of our Saviour's guidance. 
He will guide, that is enough, and His Love 
can make a way through questions we never 
can solve by our own unaided reason, how- 
ever learned or quick-minded we may be, 
for He alone can make " the crooked 
straight, and the rough smooth." But we 
must also remember, "according to the in- 
exorable law of God's love, while He gives 
grace for grace. He gives as His gifts are 
turned into service." In a former Leaflet I 
touched on this truth, which perhaps shines 
with a brighter radiance in the text I then 
used to illustrate it, than it does even in 
the promised ' Grace for Grace.' Certainly 
the thoughts that grow out of the command 
* Give,' and its conclusion, " // shall be given 
unto you,'' are replete with the elements nec- 
essary for growth in the Christian life ; 
clustering as they do around the great prin- 
ciples of spiritual growth, which I have al- 
ready alluded to — I mean the surrender of 
self ; and desire after likeness to Christ. 
Like a star, shining out of a clear sky, the 
truth which shines out of this self-surrender 
reveals to us that it in no way implies self- 
impoverishment. But to fully understand 



1 84 



REST A WHILE. 



this requires that the word give be accent- 
uated, for only thus will we feel the differ- 
ence between giving^ rather than letting oth- 
ers take from us. Have you ever thought 
how many things can be taken from you ? 
But there is one thing always your own to 
give — and that is your soul. Though it 
may be marred and wounded, yet no one 
can rob you of that ; and the power to 
give it, as, and where, you will. If you give 
it to Christ — ah ! think of all He gives in 
return ! 

Among the sweetest of the Heavenly gifts 
that blossom out of our self-surrender is 
the power of love for, and sympathy with 
others. And in response to our first faint 
heart-beat of love toward the Saviour, we 
straightway feel this growing capacity of 
love and sympathy toward His creatures. 
We learn also these hand-in-hand graces — 
love and sympathy — which are the dearest 
gifts we can either give or receive from our 
Lord, or His people, are nevertheless the 
most worthless and baneful gifts we can be- 
stow upon ourselves. For self-love engen- 
ders nothing but weakness in our own hearts, 
and estrangement from the hearts of others. 



GRACE lOR GRACE. 



185 



I think we never mark this contrast between 
ouf'going and ///-going love and sympathy 
as we do in hours of trial, for then, if we 
have real love to give out, it finds ways 
without number by which tender sympathy 
can be expressed ; — and how the heart ex- 
pands the more it gives ! 

Whereas, if we nurse but for a brief time 
our own special sorrows, with i'<?//"-sympathy, 
the heart and mind quickly narrow and be- 
come self-centered, till like a child rolling 
a snow-ball, we find almost before we know 
it, the little ball has become too large for 
our hands to lift. But, I repeat, once give 
forth, rather than hug in, love and sympa- 
thy, and we find verified in our souls the 
truth of the gardener's assurance regarding 
flowers — the more roses we gather and give, 
the more will crown our plant with beauty 
and fragrance. 

This law requires no detailing, for it is 
enforced by every power we possess, great- 
er strength and ability following use ; but 
remember, use does not include mis-use or 
abuse. When we realize that this power of 
giving, is something so capable of growth, 
how it enriches life ! Think of the hearts 



l86 - REST A WHILE. 

we can help, comfort, and cheer by the 
precious gift of sympathy. — ^ But to really 
give it costs so much,' you reply, — and, 
you ask: how you can endure the strain 
on heart and emotions, which contact with 
suffering or sin must involve ? Yes, it does 
cost, but like all the soul's deepest expe- 
riences, it is worth the price, even though 
it leads close to sorrow and sin. — But you 
can never know wherein the " worth all it 
costs " consists, if from dread of a shock to 
your feelings, you rest satisfied to depute 
others to dispense what you call charity 
— something which is as unlike the giving 
of the heart-to-heart sympathy our Saviour 
enjoined, as gold is unlike mere surface 
gilding. If you once try the two meth- 
ods you will straightway know the differ- 
ence. And now we will return to our fol- 
lowing out of the '' law of exchange " and 
the results that attend the command, "Give, 
and it shall be given unto you." One of 
the first and most blessed is the growth 
of our own hearts, till they become large 
enough to receive the only real wealth a 
soul can possess, — capacity to give, — and 
hence to receive. And, oh ! the much there 



GRACE FOR GRACE. 



187 



is to receive, despite all the sorrow and suf- 
fering. In proof of this, think of the love, 
joy, beauty, and brightness all about us if 
only our hearts were large enough to take 
it in ; and they will be, if we banish selfish- 
ness ; — that must be done, otherwise it will 
crowd out everything else. We who live in 
love-guarded homes especially need to re- 
member this, for the love we there give and 
receive, without watchfulness, is apt to be- 
come a form of selfishness. And, anyway, 
it is a love unlike the wide, comprehensive 
thought and regard for others, which em- 
braces the great company of men, women, 
and children we are wont to call " the 
masses.*' I know this wide out-reaching 
involves much that is repulsive in detail, 
yet if we give it, just as surely as spring 
follows winter, it returns to us freighted 
with blessings. In this, love and sympathy 
are like the ascending vapors which are 
constantly going on their silent way up to 
the sun ; and yet earth loses nothing for all 
her giving, the moisture is sure to fall again 
transmuted into spring-time showers of pat- 
tering rain-drops that woo bud and blos- 
som into leaf and flower ; or it returns in 



1 88 REST A WHILE. 

the softly falling snow-flakes of winter that 
cover and protect from the blight of frost 
and cold the tender rootlets of growing 
things. It returns also in the refreshing 
mid-summer dew, and in the generous au- 
tumn rains that fill the brooks and rivers 
soon to be ice-bound. 

These are commonplace types of Nature's 
lesson, ^' Give, and it shall be given," but 
they are none the less true types of what 
will be the experience of your heart, dear 

H , if you test their truth by giving 

yourself — for you will receive in response — 
what one word can tell it all ? — Humanity 
hints it, and consider what it means to give 
love and sympathy out of your little beat- 
ing heart, and in return to feel the throb of 
humanity's great heart ! And this is not 
all, for as we give ourselves to others, God 
gives Himself to us ; and we find there is 
nothing so full as the personal experience 
out of which we can interpret God's Love. 
We find, also, by striving to be Christ-like 
in our treatment of others, we learn to know 
Christ in His relation to us, as we can in no 
other way, — He becomes ours with a close- 
ness of knowledge w^hich can only exist as 



GRACE FOR GRACE. 



189 



through following Him we experience how 
He felt. All this seems much to accom- 
plish, dear H , but, 

" To start thee on thy out-running race 
Christ shows the splendor of His Face ; 
What shall that Face of splendor be, 
When at the goal He welcomes thee ? " 

And you receive, the crowning Grace for 

Grace ? 

Though this crowning Grace is sure, 
meanwhile we have many other graces 
waiting to be perfected, and their progres- 
sive development is no hasty work, for our 
Saviour's deepest lessons are not thus 
taught. Again, the law of Nature illus- 
trates the law of spiritual progress : bud, 
blossom, and fruit, there is no changing 
this order. Nature's type does not end here, 
for as we strive after growth, grace enters 
our souls as gently as the dew falls in re- 
freshment on thirsty flowers ; like the plants, 
we are, too, growing all the time, though, 
now and then, we seem standing still, and 
we need to look alrthe way-marks by the ^ 
road-side to discover if we make any ad- 
vance. Then, again, sometimes when we 
have seemed '* standing still " our eyes are 



190 



REST A WHILE. 



suddenly opened, like the eyes of the blind 
man, and we " see trees as men walking." 
We find our feet that have seemed so halt- 
ing, have become like "hinds' feet," and 
" God has set us upon high places " — " He 
has enlarged our steps that we may not 
slip " (Ps. xviii. ^6), If you picture a moun- 
tain path with narrow steps cut in the ledge 
of projecting rock, you will understand the 
beauty and significance of that promise to 
enlarge ^/le steps ; it is a promise to make 
the rough way easy, and the dangerous 
ascent safe. Observe, also, the word ^en- 
large ' has a different meaning in Bible lan- 
guage than the mere idea of " increasing 
and making greater." — When David says 
God has enlarged his feet, he means that 
God has set his feet free. It is a word of 
deliverance proclaiming that " he walked at 
liberty because he kept God's law." Using 
the thought thus, we find if by faith we are 
able to enter on the high-lands of soul 
liberty, mists and shadows will no longer 
dim our vision and dismay our souls. It is 
such a glad, sunlit path, and when you 
tread it, you will find it is also bordered on 
either side by the blessings of ^ Grace for 



GRACE FOR GRACE. jgj^ 

Grace/ which bloom in as regular order as 
the flowers that mark progress in the Floral 
Calendar of Nature, of which the poets sing 
emblem songs, that each hold a flower-like 
thought that suggests a Heavenward-point- 
ing metaphor. 

If you trace this analogy, 1 think it may 
supply a half-answer to your question re- 
garding those progressive Graces v/hich 
overlap one the other, like sea-waves rolling 
landward from the great boundless mid- 
ocean of fathomless Grace. Hence, by way 
of renvoi to this meditation on Grace, we 
will turn the leaves of a " Grace for Grace" 
and floral Calendar I made not long ago, 
to keep pace with the buds and blossoms 
of the year, for flowers 

** Are emblems, and we trace 
In the rarest and the loveliest 
Act of love, and gift of grace." 

And Wordsworth tells us also : 

** God made the flowers to beautify 
The earth and cheer man's careful mood ; 
And he is happiest who hath power 
To gather wisdom from a flower, 
And wake his heart in every hour 
To pleasant gratitude." 



jg2 REST A WHILE. 

I give you my fancy, but you may choose 
quite a different order ; mine ranks the 
Graces according to St. Paul's *^ fruits of 
the spirit " — thus they come in succession 
— '' Love, Joy, Peace, Long-suffering, Gen- 
tleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, Tem- 
perance, Righteousness, Truth." 

Zove — its emblem a Zi7y : 

** Consider the Lilies 

How beautiful they grow ! 
Never King had such glory, 

Yet no toil they know. 
Oh, happy are the Lilies 

That He /oved them so ! " 

/oy — old Donne gives us its type — the 

Daisy : 

** Flung unrestrained and free, 

O'er hill and vale, and desert sod, 

That man, where'er he walks, may see 

In every step the stamp of God." 

Peace — surely its emblem is the 
** Hearths-ease^ of all Earth*s flowers most rare." 

As for Long-sufferings if we seek its type 
we must search 



GRACE FOR GRACE. jg^ 

** Under the green hedges after the snow, 
There do the dear little Violets grow." 

**Ah, the flowers ! surely yes, 
At the end there will be a few, 
Violets, Violets, so I guess, 
And a little grass and dew." 

Next we |>ause to note Gentleness^ a grace 
sweet as the 

** Timid Jasmine-buds that keep 
Their odors to themselves all day, 
But when the sunlight dies away. 
Let their delicious secret out." 



Goodness I find emblemed by 

....** The pilgrim May-fiowers — 
The humblest and the sweetest of all the flowers that 
grow." 

Faith claims 
** The quick and subtle spirit of the Rose,** 

While Meekness is like 

** The Harebell, as with grief depressed 
Bowing her fragrance." 

9 



ip4 ^EST A WHILE. 

Temperance has for its type 
** The Snow-drop . . . robed in snow-white innocence." 

And Righteousness is emblemed by the Pas- 
sion-Flower^ 

** Fair and mystical .... 
That seems like a thing apart. 

** Marked with the Cross of Jesus, 
And the signs of His passion deep. 



** What a linking of sorrow with beauty ! 
The Cross, with its story so sad, 
Stands forth on these delicate flowers, 
And as we gaze, we are glad ; 

** For the Cross is our joy and glory. 
The pledge of our Saviour's love. 
The * infusion of heavenly sweetness ' here, 
And the guide to a crown above. 

** And though now we see not the glory. 
Yet through all earth's pain and loss, 
We know that our lives are made holy. 
And signed with the blessed Cross. 

** And we pray, as we watch you, sweet flowers, 
That deep in our inmost hearts, 
We may treasure the holy lesson 
That your beauty strange imparts ; 



GRACE FOR GRACE. igg 

" That the Christian's badge of honor 
Is the bearing of the Cross, 
That to suffer with the Master 
Is the richest gain, not loss. 

** That the soul is crowned, transfigured 
With a glory full and free ; 
That ever with love remembers 
Jesus has died for me ; 

** That that life is blessed and saintly 
That fulfills the sacred word, 
Always bearing about in the body 
The dying of the Lord." 

The last Grace mentioned in St. Paul's 
list is Truthy and I know no better emblem 
of it than the one contained in Milton's 
lines to the 

** Immortal Amaranth ! a flower which once 
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, 
Began to bloom ; but soon, for man's offence, 
To heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, 
And flowers aloft, shading the tree of Life." 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 



197 



** Thus saith the Lord, .... Fear not : for I have 
redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name ; thou 
art mine." — Is. xliii. i. 

* Called of Jesus Christ : . . . . beloved of God, 
called to be Saints." — Rom. i. 6, 7. 

** Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building." 
— I Cor. iii. 9. 

** The soul wherein God dwells — 
What church can holier be ? — 
Becomes a walking tent of heavenly majesty." 



198 



VIII. 
CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 

I DO not wonder the words which head 
this meditation prompt you to ask-— 
* What is it to be a Saint ?' — Neither do I 
wonder that you add — * What is Christian 
self-sacrifice ? * In my reply, I will reverse 
your question, dear H— — , for self-sacrifice 
is the bud of which saintliness is the flower. 
This is a subtle subject, and there is danger 
of making a mistake, for we are so apt to 
think self-sacrifice implies the "giving up 
of self," whereas its true object is the cor- 
rection of faults, and the relinquishing of 
wrong plans and desires. To do this does 
not demand the sacrifice of our good traits, 
our good feelings, our real happiness, or our 
well-employed time, for while we are com- 
manded to " cut off the right foot, to pluck 
out the right eye,'' if they offend, we are also 
commanded not to let them offend. If you 

(199) 



200 REST A WHILE. 

strive to do this you will soon know what 
self-sacrifice means, and the hard struggle 
and tough fight it costs to subdue inclina- 
tion and desire, this will teach you pa- 
tience — which is a very important part of 
saintliness of character — for not as we fight 
do we feel the gladness of victory — for that 
we must wait — it comes afterwards. Mean- 
while, be assured, you cannot gain a spirit- 
ual victory till you have caught the spirit 
of Mary's words — " Whatsoever he saith 

unto thee, do it^ 

Keep in mind, also, the truth that '^ God 
never spoils a life," hence, if in following 
the path of self-sacrifice you come to hard 
places, you may always know they are part 
of your Christian experience and education, 
designed to develop growth in grace, and 
not to mar or spoil. You will encounter 
many such places, and it is well to be pre- 
pared for them, for when we are " called to 
be Saints,'* it is a call that runs side by side 
with the assurance that '^ we must through 
much tribulation enter into the kingdom 
of Heaven." How tenderly our Saviour's 
parable of the Vine and the branches 
illustrates this, and what a stronghold of 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 20 1 

comfort He gives in the words : *^ In the 
world ye shall have tribulation, but be of 
good cheer, I have overcome the world " 
(John xvii. 33). 

'' I have overcome '' — that is a pledge for 
our final victory, just as our only way of 
becoming Saints is found through our abid- 
ing in Him. And now let us think for a 
little while of the path toward Saintliness, 
which is prefaced by self-sacrifice, or, as I 
like better to term it, self-mastery. One 
reason why it is a path so often rough and 
trial-paved is that " we must be proved be- 
fore we can be approved,'' and *^ therefore 
the individual life is so adjusted in its cir- 
cumstances, and so measured as to its length 
as to constitute on the whole a complete 
probation." Without the discipline of trial, 
in most cases, this would be impossible, for 
"there is probably that in every one of us, 
which only suffering in some form can touch 
and try." Hence we read in God's Word : 
" Beloved, think it not strange concerning 
the fiery trial which is to try you." — " I will 
refine them as silver is refined, and will try 
them as gold is tried." . . . . ^' The trial of 
your faith being more precious than of gold 



202 REST A WHILE. 

which perisheth/' .... Do not be dismayed 
by this ; remember, though '' God's fires are 
hot they are also purifying," and while He 
is " a consuming fire to what is evil. He 
is a refining and preserving fire to all that 
is good," and " the purifying like the prov- 
ing is accomplished by the whole of the 
life-lot and discipline," not alone by the 
darker side of it, bright things have 
their function in the work too. Still, I re- 
peat, adversity almost always seems needed 
to accomplish the holy, blessed object of 
fitting us to become "God's husbandry, 
God's building." 

The place, self-sacrifice — for the sake of 
others — fills in the development of saintly 
character, is one of the steps Heavenward 
which it is most difficult to define, and yet, 
it is a very necessary one to take, if " by 
patient continuance in well-doing we seek 
for glory, and honor, and immortality," for 
while '' it is not possible to doubt that 
Christians are often called to suffer for the 
sanctification of others," it is hard to de- 
cide how far we are to seek self-sacrifice for 
the sake of others. For self-sacrifice which 
is sought after, is, alas ! too often triumphed 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 203 

in, and thus it becomes calamitous in its 
effects on our characters, and " by the sen- 
timental pursuit of it people have some- 
times made not only their own lives useless, 
but the whole framework of their religion 
hollow/' But this in no way interferes with 
the discipline of right, *^ which demands that 
we continually and reciprocally submit and 
surrender in all kind and courteous and 
affectionate ways ; and these submissions 
and ministries to each, are as good for the 
yielder as for the receiver ; they strengthen 
and perfect as much as they soften and re- 
fine." But, in this matter of self-sacrifice, 
no one can make a law for the conduct of 
others, beyond the general rule that " the 
constant duty of every man to his fellows is 
to ascertain his own powers and special 
gifts, and to strengthen them for the help 
of others. Life being not a pastime pre- 
pared simply for our enjoyment, but a sol- 
emn duty which we are bound to fulfil to 
the best of our powers, each one must test 
their own nature and gifts, and the better 
they are used for the weal of humanity the 
fuller will be the inner gladness, and the 
more sure the attainment of abiding peace 



204 REST A WHILE. 

of mind.'* And " in the consciousness of 
having sown some seed for eternity, you 
will close your eyes at the end of each day 
like a tired child, perchance, but also like a 
faithful, well-tried servant/' A life thus 
governed turns toward the Sun of Right- 
eousness as naturally as earth's sunflowers 
turn toward the king of the planets ; and a 
soul that walks life's ways illumined thus, by 
beams from Heaven, will soon discover the 
true spirit of self-sacrifice. Faith means so 
much when by comm.union with our Saviour 
we thus view through it, our attitude to- 
ward duty, as well as toward sin, for while 
it shows us our needs, it points to their rem- 
edy; the Christian life, being from its dawn- 
ing on to its earthly ending an experience 
marked at every advancing step by some 
new manifestation of Christ's Love. Marked, 
too, by especial, peculiar, and blessed revela- 
tions of His Presence in the soul ; but they, 
like all the dearest, most sacred experiences, 
are not for a stranger to intermeddle with. 
Christian experience also is not bounded by 
the development of any one grace or virtue 
to the exclusion of others, but by the round- 
ing out of all. Hence we will no longer 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 



205 



isolate self-sacrifice, but proceed to consider 
as a complete whole, the various virtues, 
which are combined in the Saint-likeness 
emblemed by the " fruits of the Spirit." 
And they only ripen in proportion to our 
faith, love, and obedience, and are so inter- 
blended with individual experience, I can- 
not describe their growth by words. — 
Doubtless this is a cause for thankfulness, 
for our natural self- consciousness is ag- 
gravated by the tendency of this analyzing 
age, and there is danger of our carrying it 
so far that in the end we find it hard to free 
ourselves from ourselves. Yes, surely it is 
well for us not to try to explain and define 
by rule and measure each feeling, and each 
degree of growth. 

Observe just here, that however marked 
the difference in personal saintliness may 
be as to the details of its growth, there is 
no difference in the universality of the 
call ; and the directions for its attainment 
are also alike, for it consists in Christ-like- 
ness, and that involves that we become 
*^dead to sin " and "alive to righteousness," 
something we can only become as we learn 
to know our Divine Example, through 



2o6 ."" REST A WHILE. 

earnest study of His character, words, and 
works. It demands also that we become 
acquainted with the lives of His followers 
as we find them recorded in Scripture. This 
is why Bible-told biographies are precious ; 
and it is why, even when they are comprised 
within the compass of a few verses, there 
is nothing fragmentary or unsatisfactory 
about them. Think of the story of St. Pe- 
ter, and what a complete metaphor of hu- 
man life it is. Think of the history of 
Paul, and of John, how rounded and full 
of suggestions for our imitation they are. 
Think, too, of the lesser lights which shine 
from the lives of God's Saints of old. Seek- 
ing one of these lives as a type for us to 
ponder, as we meditate on our own ^ call 
to be Saints,' the brief record of St. Anna 
comes to me as full of rich, helpful thoughts 
for our daily life. For as we transfer her 
reverence and service from the Jewish 
Temple, and the narrow conceptions of a 
God bound bj^- local limits, to the wider 
outlook which is ours through faith in 
Christ, and which reveals all the world as 
a temple sanctified by God's presence, we 
will find many things in Anna's life which 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 207 

are types of what will be our individual ex- 
perience if we make the Lord Christ the 
reality of our lives. Her story, in connec- 
tion with the Temple, is briefly told : There 
was one Anna, a prophetess ; she was of 
great age, she was a widow, and she de- 
parted not from the Temple, but served 
God with fastings and prayers night and 

day. 

This is the substance of the record, and 
to discover its deep heart of helpful mean- 
ing we will need to read between the lines ; 
otherwise it will be empty of practical sig- 
nificance for us. It will be useless, too, un- 
less we realize that while life is meant to 
be a mission and a ministry, the wisest and 
most practical axioms never made any one 
better without their own earnest determina- 
tion to appropriate, and incorporate into 
their own conduct the good learned from 
the lives of others. To accomplish this we 
require in the voyage of life, a steady pur- 
pose to hold, and a firm will to guide the 
rudder. And this lesson of steadfast adhe- 
sion to duty is the first we find for imitation 
in the story of this Anna " who departed 
not from the Temple, but served God night 



2o8 REST A WHILE. 

and day/* Before we dwell on this contin- 
uance of service, I pause to bid you note 
we are viewing Anna's life from an out- 
look that draws no distinction between 
what is commonly called sacred and sec- 
ular. — Thus her Temple service as an exam- 
ple for us to copy comprises the every-day 
duties of the most commonplace every-day 
life, as well as those which rank as rare and 
important. You will see the reason I bid 
you put aside the thought of sacred and 
secular, if you remember that what is wont 
to be called secular is only the unappreciated 
sacred. For God is everywhere, and in 
everything; His temple is the universe, and 
He is as near to us when we are occupied 
with the most lowly duty, as when we are 
busy with the most important. Thus every 
act becomes to the Christian some form of 
^ Temple service.' And by faith's illumin- 
ing light we know also not merely that it is 
possible to * do all ' for God, but that it is 
also impossible to do anything which is not 
either a consecration or a desecration of 
His Presence, for it is not a part of God, 
but all of God, that is in every place. And 
while it is true that by prayer, praise, and 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 209 

meditation we may enter into the " Holy of 
Holies," it is no less true, that the simplest 
deed comes under the law of service for 
Christ's sake. Ah ! if we did but remember 
this, how every hour, like Anna, we would 
be " serving the Lord," and how softly we 
would walk before Him : with what rever- 
ent footsteps we would tread His Temple — 
the world. The next suggestion in Anna's 
life, as an example for us to follow, as we 
strive to become Saints, we find in the 
words — " She served God with fastings and 
prayers." Two acts which contain the es- 
sence of all spiritual life. Here we meet 
again the necessity for self-sacrifice, which 
is the other name for fastt?ig. For fasting, 
to honor God, requires that we subordinate 
the material to the spiritual, not in the 
mere matter of food alone, but in every 
detail of our lives. This cannot be done 
without much pruning of the heart, mind, 
thoughts, affections, and actions. How 
much, must vary according to our individ- 
ual temptations, and self-will ; but be it 
more or less, it must be enough to leave 
room for God to fill the first place in our 
hearts, and to really thus crown Him King 



2IO REST A WHILE. 

of our inmost being will, in most cases, 
need a strength of moral purpose which 
will soon teach what se/f-denial, sacrifice, 
and mastery mean. But out of such pur- 
pose will grow a nobler worship than that 
of bended knee, for it will be the service by 
which through the will-power of a right- 
eous soul, homage is rendered to the Father 
in Heaven by the consecration of business 
and pleasure, time and opportunity to His 
service. The fact that "fasting and prayer*' 
were not divided in Anna's life is also an 
example for us, — and, how they may both 
be observed night and day, is explained, 
when we accept the idea that fasting is the 
mastery of the spiritual over the material — 
while prayer is not limited to mere petition, 
but consists in every thought of God which 
fills the soul with loving desire for His pres- 
ence. 

It is, also, the rest embodied in the child- 
like trust, with which the soul clings to " Our 
Father in Heaven,'' — the Father who has 
said : " Know ye not that ye are the temple 
of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth 
in you ?" (i Cor. iii. i6). — "The temple of 
God " ! Truly " we are greater than we 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 211 

know.** Let us try to compass this thought 
— " God within us I — Not only ever with us, 
unseen ; not only watching us in our secret 
moments, and reading the very thoughts of 
our hearts ; not only covering us with the 
shadow of His wings, and lighting us with 
the light of His countenance ; but within 
us, our bodies His temple, our hearts His 
home! What a glorious dignity! What 
an imperial inheritance ! We are the 
children of God, the heirs of immor- 
tality, but a little lower than the angels, 

crowned with glory and honor Oh, 

if we could but grasp the wonderful mean- 
ing of this, we should live lives nobler and 
more beautiful ; we should breathe a purer, 
a sweeter, and a calmer air/* And — byGod*s 
grace we may grasp it — at least, in so 
far as to touch the hem of His garment. 
For His word bids, " Only Believe,** " Fear 
Not.'* And each onward step we take in 
following Christ lifts us to a position higher 
in Christ, and contains for us, if we accept 
the precious gift, a sanctity that corresponds 
with that position. You ask how you can 
attain this blessed sense of peace ? In re- 
ply I ask, '' ^ Are you created \n Christ Jesus ? 



212 REST A WHILE. 

— If you can answer ^ Yes/ then you are 
^created unto good works/ ^ Have you 
died with Christ ? ' Then ^ reckon yourself 
dead to sin/ ^ Are you buried^Wh Christ ?* 

* Let not sin reign in your mortal body/ ^ Are 
you quickened with Christ ? ' Then you are 

* begotten again unto a lively hope/ Are you 
risen with Christ ? Then ^ walk in newness 
of life/ Set your affections on things above. 
Are vou called to be one with Christ ? Then 
you are * called to be a Saint.' ^ Take heed, 
therefore, that you walk worthy of the voca- 
tion wherewith ye are called with all lowli- 
ness and meekness, forbearing one another 
in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of 
the Spirit in the bond of peace/ " — Remem- 
bering — 

** Greatness, which is infinite, makes room 
For all things in its lap to lie/' — 



And— 

** What is infinite must be a home, 
A shelter for the meanest life, 
Where it is free to reach its greatest growth 
Far from the touch of strife. 

** We share in what infinite ; 'tis ours. 
For we and it alike are Thine ; 



CALLED TO BE SAINTS. 213 

What I enjoy, great God ! by right of Thee 
Is more than doubly mine. 

*' Thus doth Thy hospitable greatness lie 
Outside us like a boundless sea ; 
We cannot lose ourselves where all is home, 
Nor drift away from Thee. 

** Out on that sea we are in harbor still, 
And scarce advert to winds and tides, 
Like ships that ride at anchor, with the waves 
Flapping against their sides. 

" Thus doth Thy grandeur make us grand ourselves, 
'Tis goodness bids us fear ; 
Thy greatness makes us brave as children, 
When those they love are near. 

'* Great God ! our lowliness takes heart to play 
Beneath the shadow of Thy state ; 
The only comfort of our littleness 
Is that Thou art so s^reat. 



i=>' 



** Then on Thy grandeur I will lay me down ; 
Already life is heaven for me ; 
No cradled child more softly lies than I, — 
Come soon, Eternity ! " 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 



215 



**The Angel of the Lord encampeth round about 
them that fear Him, and delivereth them." — Ps. 
xxxiv. 7. 

** The Lord will send His Angel with thee, and pros- 
per thy way." — Gen. xxiv. 40. 

*' Ah, me ! how lovely they must be 

Whom God has glorified ; 
Yet one of them, oh, sweetest thought, 

Is ever at my side. 
Then for thy sake, dear Angel ! 

More humble will I be ; 



Then love me, love me. Angel dear t 
And I will love thee more ; 

And help me when my soul is cast 
Upon the eternal shore," 



216 



IX. 
ANGELS BY THE WAY. 

YOU know the importance I attach to 
what we are wont to call "little 
things/' thus you will not be surprised 
when I tell you the subject for this medita- 
tion was suggested by a remark I overheard 
not long ago, as I passed the carpenter-shop 
at the corner of our village street. Evi- 
dently it referred to the erection of some 
high wall, or fence, for the words that 
floated to me borne on the still air were, 
** Do you want to shut out the angels ? '' 

Straightway they stirred memories that 
for years had lain dormant in the place, — 
be it either heart or mind — where memories 
are hidden, and where they are so deeply 
impressed, that nothing effaces them, how- 
ever long it may be before they are repro- 
duced at seemingly the most unlikely min- 
utes, and from the most unlikely causes. 
Knowing this, we recognize, that memories 
lo (217) 



2i8 REST A WHILE. 

are God-given, and meant to be a lasting 
possession ; and yet often, when suddenly 
they are wakened, we stand spell-bound, as 
I did that hour, while they thronged my 
mind as thickly as roses crown a rose-bush 
in June. And though there were troubles 
blended in with these memories, they were 
tender and gentle as they came back to me 
mellowed by time, and the soothing touch of 
our Lord, who has promised to be to His 
wounded ones as the " Balm of Gilead." 
Do you ever think if we here on earth can 
feel the healing of this precious Balm what 
Heaven will be to the wounded ! Heaven 
where the soul will drink in comfort and heal- 
ing through every bruised part, and where 
" God shall wipe av/ay all tears.'' In the 
presence of the hope of this Divine conso- 
lation, one can but think that the untried — 
if there are any such among earth's sons 
and daughters — who reach Heaven, will 
wish they, too, had had tears, just for the 
sake of having God's Hand wipe them 
away ! And when we look at sorrow in 
this light, how full of meaning we find the 
words Jesus uttered as a benediction for 
those who grieve — ^'Blessed are they that 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. glQ 

mourn, for they shall be comforted/' And 
yet it has taken me, and I think it will you, 
a long time to decide how we ought to 
bless the Lord in trial. I do not believe 
we can bless Him directly for the trouble 
He sends, for it is against nature. — Can a 
mother bless God her child has died ? — 
But we can bless Him for that which He is 
to us in that which He sends. Here, again, 
Christ's words just quoted greet us as an 
explanation. The Blessing lies in the being 
comforted, and for that we can thank and 
bless the Lord. 

This I now see I was helped to learn 
through the experience the carpenter's 
question brought to remembrance. For 
his words recalled the angel-like blessings 
that came to me that long-ago time, hand 
in hand with the sorrows, which seemed 
then sharper than the thorns of the most 
thorny rose - bush. But — why emblem 
thoughts by roses — and troubles by thorns, 
when so often we find, after all, our thoughts 
have proved the thorns, while troubles have 
blossomed into flowers. Before we know 
this, however, we need to wait, for *^ no 
chastening for the present seemeth to be 



2 20 REST A WHILE. 

joyous," it is ' afterward ' it yieldeth the pre- 
cious fruits of peace and joy. Meanwhile, 
what God will have us to be He will make 
us through His own education, and the 
thing we have to do, while we are being 
thus educated, is not to struggle to be any- 
thing but our true selves, which we cannot 
be, if we strive for emotions and experiences 
because they may be expected of us, and 
because they may be natural to our neigh- 
bors. 

While we thus yield ourselves to God to 
fashion according to His Will, we are at the 
same time bidden to keep heart and mind 
wide open, and on the watch for the ^ Hid- 
den Sweetness ' with which Heavenly Love 
encompasses our path. To discover it, we 
often require to remember the Pearl mer- 
chants, who do not seek for the desired 
gems among the golden sands of the sun- 
kissed beach, but look for them down be- 
low the storm-tossed waves ; ocean-waves, — 
sometimes angry and foam-crested on the 
upper waters, but always freighted with an 
undertone song, just as troubles have a 
bright as well as a dark side. This thought, 
you say, leads you to ask, '' What especial 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 22 1 

trouble memory brought to me when I 
heard the carpenter speak of ' shutting out 
the angels?'' In detail I cannot tell you, 
for it belonged in one sense, to another, 
rather than to myself. Then, too, there are 
chapters in the history of each soul, which 
are only open for the eye of God to read. 
And a certain reserve, regarding our sor- 
rows, as well as our joys, is our heritage as 
children of God. Still it is our duty to 
share with others the results of the expe- 
riences which we have found helpful, and 
which may contain for them suggestions of 
comfort and cheer. I think one reason, why 
calm years so often come after the enthu- 
siasm has gone from our earthly life, is, that 
they may thus prove the harvest-time, when 
we are to go a-gleaning, for the sake of 
others, amid the furrows into which God's 
Hand let fall the seeds of Hope and Peace, 
even when our hearts w^ere being most deep- 
ly stirred by the sorrows of this mortal ex- 
istence. And so while I cannot tell you the 
precise trouble of that by-gone time, I can 
tell how it guided me to the knowledge 
of the ^' dear angels " old Luther called 
"our invisible but best, and most steadfast 



2 22 REST A WHILE. 

friends/' Since that time, the sense of an- 
gelic nearness has never left me, though 
the circumstances which lead to my recog- 
nition of their constant companionship have 
been put aside, — with many another page 
of life's story — as among the things we 
have to bear, and of which on our knees 
we learn what is done cannot be undone, 
but^ what is left can be. It was the expres- 
sion of calm, cheerful tranquillity on my 
mother's face that first made real to me 
how God's angels can encompass a soul 
with a peace, 

** Steady and pure as stars that beam 
In middle heaven, all mists above." 

And, 

" Soft as pure, and warm as bright." 

There was also a certain tone in her voice 
that seemed an echo of the look, and as 
though she was enfolded in the spirit of 
pi-ayer— and — I think she was, for surely 
prayer is submission to God's will— surely 
its only true Amen — is * Thy will, not 
mine.' 

I knew that the night, which only a little 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 223 

while before had glided into morning, had 
been marked for my mother by heart-an- 
guish and spiritual conflict, and this made 
all the more forceful the expression on her 
dear face ; I saw in it so plainly the angel- 
look, involuntarily I asked : ^' Have you met 
an angel by the way, dear mother ? '' — She 
made no reply, but her smile told me * Yes;' 
for it was all aglow with the rainbow light 
that is only reflected on faces when tears in 
the heart have been soothed by submission 
in the soul. I wonder, will that look ever 
shine on your face, and on mine, dear 

H ? Certainly, we meet angels every 

hour of our lives. Hence, why should it 

not ? 

Just here you ask me to pause in my re- 
countal while I tell you what I mean by the 
* angel-look.' Your question recalls the his- 
tory of Stephen at the minute, ^^ when all 
that sat in the council looking steadfastly 
on him, saw his face as it had been the face 
of an angel " (Acts vi. 15). In a volume of 
sermons by Alexander Raleigh there is one 
on this text, in which he defines wherein 
consists "the angel-face on man " — which, as 
he bids us remember, " we are not to asso- 



224 REST A WHILE. 

ciate with any particular style of face or 
cast of countenance, or with what passes 
among men for symmetrical, or handsome, 
or beautiful/' Still,^^ there are certain things 
common to the angel-face which we may look 
for in all the faces which carry on them any 
image or resemblance to higher worlds and 
holier creatures/' Brightness is the first 
thing we observe, or as we say, ^ a light 
upon the face.' — If there be light within — 
that blessed light of the indwelling Spirit 
through which we can say, " In Thy light 
shall we see light," surely you and I, dear 
H , can possess this mark of the angel- 
look. For though there will still be " some 
things to weep over, some things to fear ; " 
and we will to the very last continue to find 
*^ this is a world of cloud and shadow," yet 
at the same time we know " the heaven in 
which the cloud floats is larger than the 
cloud, and all full of Light. Shadows are 
melting things, and even where they con- 
tinue, the very fact that they are seen to be 
shadows argues the presence and prevalence 
of a superior Light." We know also that 
we have a Father in Heaven, and having 
committed the keeping of our souls, and 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 



225 



the ordering of our lives to Him, ^* He will 
lead us through the rainy days, and wintry 
weather of this present time to the summer 
that is coming/' Let us endeavor to enter 
into so vivid a realization of this, that as 
nature reflects us — (for we see nature in a 
certain sense through ourselves — in differ- 
ent lights according to our moods) — so we 
reflect our spiritual condition, and if that 
be full of light we will be able to walk even 
amid surrounding shadows with our eyes 
lifted Heavenward, while our faces will be 
illumined by the angel-look of cheerfubuss^ 

* ' As each moment wafts us higher, 

Till care and remorse are lost like motes in Light 
divine." 

To gain this ascendency over earthly 
troubles and perplexities, our hearts must 
be like Sun-dials that " do not count hours 
unless they be pleasant." Verily, this old 
inscription, so common in Germany, is a 
well-chosen motto for such an instrument 
as the Sun-dial. And how beautiful and 
blessed a thing it would be, if indeed we 
could so engrave it on the tablets of mem- 
10* 



2 26 REST A WHILE. ^ 

ory, that in life we only remembered the 
good and pleasant, the unpleasant hours 
never counting it all ! Think how deeply 
then we would drink from the source of All 
contentment. Calmness is another universal 
sign of the angel-face — " the keeping of the 
heart in the stillness of Grace, in the great 
deep peace of God in the very presence 
of immediate agitation." " Standing as 
Stephen stood, when anger burns, when 
falsehood lies, when earth is magnified, 
when heaven is slighted, looking above, 
looking beyond. This brings the Here- 
after near enough for our souls to dwell in 
its eternal calm while the fretful things of 
the present flow by,'* and are lost for us in 

*' New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven." 

Benignity is also a feature of the angel- 
look. " Without this there could be no re- 
semblance to God Himself or to His dear 
Son. This is the one thing which, less than 
anything else, could be absent. This is the 
family likeness. For ^ God is love,* and if 
He could assume any visible form, love and 
kindliness would shine conspicuously there. 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 227 

.... And he that loveth not is not of God 
and cannot wear an angel-face. But those 
who, like Stephen, learn the lesson of love 
at the feet of Christ, and practice it among 
men, — those who return good for evil, who 
forgive all who trespass against them, as 
they themselves are forgiven of God, and 
seek the salvation of souls as men seek 
gold — they put on the image of the heavenly, 
they look like their brothers of the Upper 
Kingdom, they look what they are, — the 
" children of the King ! '' 

Still another feature of the angel-face is 
Fearlessness^ .... "A faithful fearlessness 
to truth and duty, without regard to any 
present personal consequences." And "this 
celestial courage is attainable in terrestrial 
scenes, if not perfectly, yet in large measure, 
and those who attain it will, by so much 
more, put on celestial resemblance and look 
on human scenes, as it were, with the face 
of an angel." Continuing to follow Ra- 
leigh's interpretation of the angel-face, I 
venture, as he says, to " give one more 
touch to the picture, and bid you remember 
if you would possess this face you must look 
high, and far. You must learn to look not 



228 REST A WHILE. 

SO much at things, as through them, to see 
what is in them, and what is beyond. Like 
Stephen, you must look ^ steadfastly up in- 
to Heaven/ " That this should be the 
abiding attitude of our spirits we know 
from the command — " If ye be risen with 
Christ, seek those things which are above 
where Christ sitteth.** "Things above!" 
a paradox greets us here — for while, we 
can find them, in essence, everywhere, " in 
daily duties, and the commonest details, it 
needs the ^ angel-eye ' to discover them.'' 
This leads me to remind you, unless you 
have the angel-soul, you can never have the 
angel-look. Raleigh expresses this some- 
what bluntly, saying: " To put the matter 
plainly, could anything more absurd be 
conceived than this, that a man should say, 
' Now I am going to look like an angel ! ' 
If he has not got something of the angel- 
soul, he never can wear the angel- face. If he 
is not like the angels, he never can look like 
them But never mind the face. For- 
get if you will that you have a face. I be- 
lieve one face is just as good as another, or 
almost as good, for the expression of divine 
sentiment and emotion. Keep soul-bright- 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 229 

ness, and the smile will, someway, ripple 
through. Keep soul-peace and fear or mis- 
ery will not settle on your face Love 

God with heart, and soul, and strength, and 
mind, and your neighbor as yourselL .... 
Have the angel within, and leave all else 

to come as it will Be a Christian 

through and through, in belief and practice, 
among fellow-disciples, among worldly peo- 
ple, and the Lord your God will put His 
* beauty ' on you, in one or other of its many 
forms, and in some supreme moments of 
life, in suffering, in trial, in death, may give 
your friends beholding you the privilege 
and joy of looking as it were upon the face 
of an angel." 

I think you know now, dear H , what 

the ^ angel-look ' is, and I will resume the 
story of how I came to recognize that they 
who faithfully follow Christ are among 
those of whom we are told : 

*' Angels He calls ye ; be your strife 
To lead on earth an angel's life." 

During the immediate months that fol- 
lowed my asking my mother if she had met 
an angel, I often brooded over the words — 



230 



REST A WHILE. 



wishing she would refer to them, but it was 
well-nigh a year before she did. And since 
a year must mean some progress in spirit- 
ual growth, if there be any love for the 
Lord Christ in the soul, I had during that 
time, by God's grace, learned enough sub- 
mission to meet my daily duties with a 
cheerful face. Thus it happened that there 
came a day when just as I was starting for 
a morning round of music lessons, my 
mother smilingly asked : " Daughter, have 

you, too, met angels by the way ? " How 

the memory of that day comes to me now, 
with the distinctness of an event only yes- 
terday by-gone. It was an autumn morning, 
the air crisp and clear, the outline of the 
distant hills sharply defined against the 
blue of the sky — shadows lingered in the 
valley. — The river went hurrying on its way 
bearing on its flowing waters the reflection 
of a cloud, that floated up from the eastern 
horizon, which was still rosy with the flush 
of early day. But it is my mother's face I 
see most clearly, it was so calm, so bright, 
so full of peaceful trust. No wonder her 
words sent me forth with the gladness of a 
smile in my heart. Alas — before noon-time 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 231 

the gladness had gone, like the dew from 
the flowers. It proved such a trying day, 
I returned at night-fall utterly dispirited — 
with a heart full of complaints against the 
hardness of life, and my own special portion 
of it. But when I saw my mother, com- 
plaints melted like snow in April — and 
drawing a low chair to her side, I laid my 
head on her dear shoulder, saying : " Tell 
me, little mother, are you my angel ?^ — Tell 
me, can we really meet angels by the Vv^ay ? " 
— Oh, the light in her face as she replied : 
" Yes, really — are we not told in God's own 
Book, ^ He shall give His angels charge 
over thee to keep thee in all thy ways '' ? — 
And softly she added : ^^ Sometimes I think 
these angels of ministry are as many as our 
varied needs of comfort and support, but 
only the soul wherein faith abides can rec- 
ognize their presence, only the ear of faith 
can hear their tender whispers.'* 

" And I am too discouraged to either be- 
hold or hear," I murmured, and my hand 
nestled into mother's, as though the feel of 
her clasp in return could help me — and it 
did ! Its pressure grew firmer as she said : 
^' Perhaps one trouble is that you fail t-Q 



232 REST A WHILE. 

understand real confidence in Bible truths 
is expecting from our Lord all He has 
promised to give us — and this expectation 
applies to the most humble, trying, and 
homely duties, as well as to the seemingly 
great, for in spiritual things we have no 
measure for great and small, and — 

** Strength for to-day is all that we need, 
For there will never be a to-morrow ; 
For to-morrow will prove but another to-day, 
With its measure of joy and of sorrow." 

After a custom of mother's, she was 
silent then, leaving her words to take 
root in my heart before she took up again 
the dropped stitches of our ^angel-talk.' 
*^ You ask,*' she presently said, ^'what 
angel I meet, when tempted as you are now, 
child, to indulge in bitter repinings. It is 
the Angel of Patience that comes at such 
times, and — 

** There's quiet in that angel's glance, 
There's rest in his still countenance. 



Ills and woes he may not cure, 
He kindly trains us to endure. 

And makes our own our Father's will ! 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 233 

He walks with thee, that angel kind, 
And gently whispers, ' Be resigned. 
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell 
The dear Lord ordereth all things well.* 



'' If you really believe," mother continued, 
*^ that ' the dear Lord ordereth all things 
well,' you have in your heart the founda- 
tion - stone of a patience nothing can 
rudely shake, even if sore trials come ; 
holding firmly to its supporting power, the 
angel Patience will help you to find pain 
transformed into an angel visitor." — And 
again mother repeated a simple verse, that 
made her meaning plain : 

"As I looked on Pain, my shadowy guest, 
Her face was shining w4th a heavenly light, 
And tender as a mother's sweetest glance ; 
And then she spoke with soft and loving tone — 

* No cruel foe, dear child, but truest friend 
I come, commissioned by thy risen Lord, 
To purge thy dross and draw thy heart above. 
Were life too sweet, heaven would be all forgot. 
For only weary souls will sigh for rest.' '* 

Just then we were interrupted, but before 
mother left me, she found time to remind 
me of the One Higher than all angels, 



2 34 REST A WHILE. 

whose promise is — ^' Lo, I am with you 
always/* 

"And if you have Christ's abiding pres- 
ence in your soul," she said, " then truly 
you will hold converse with angels, for 
surely they will be where He abides — and 
to our earthly understanding they are typi- 
fied by pure, holy thoughts, and faithful, 
earnest deeds done from love to Him, our 
Lord." 

With these words I will end this story of 
that long - ago conversation, hoping the 
memory of it that stays with you, may be a 
repetition of the felt presence and nearness 
of the angels, like that my heart has known, 
ever since I first saw the look of wondrous 
peace on my mother's face. And by way 
of help to this, remember the line, 

** Our acts our angels are." 

Acts ! they are the important things — and 
they are the outcome of Vvdiat we are in 
heart ; they tell better than volumes of 
words can, whether the angels who dwell 
with us are the ministers of good or of evil, 
for " if there is evil in us it will attract evil, 
and work toward evil ; if there is good in 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 



235 



US God will make it serve His glory. The 
streams are quite beyond us, we never know 
where they go ; the fountain is ours, and if 
the angel of sweet charity is to stir its wa- 
ters, we must keep them holy and pure, and 
this we can only do by keeping close to 
Him who can turn bitter waters into sweet.'* 
Yes, the important thing is that our daily 
life and conversation bear witness that we 
have angel companionship ; this is worth 
more than any number of thoughts, and 
fancies about the angels who '^ encircle 
us constantly, either w^ith a curse or a 
blessing. A blessing for those of the 
girded loin, and the burning lamp, but a 
curse for the idle and wicked.'* " But the 
curse need not be a permanent thing, for it 
will turn into a blessing, if as we open our 
eyes to behold the angels of the outer world, 
we also open the door ot our hearts to the 
angels of the inner world, that sometimes 
come in garbs so unlike our preconceived 
idea of the robing of God's messengers, 
that verily as we bid them enter we prepare 
to ' entertain angels unawares.' But though 
there may be angels who come to us thus 
veiled, we can always know the Angels of 



236 REST A WHILE. 

Innocence, Opportunity, and Time, and of 
Prayer and of Deeds, for they will be sure 
to make their presence known," and " they 
are angels with hands full of immortal 
gifts," and our way to obtain these gifts is 
to seek them with Jacob's determination, 
crying : " I will not let Thee go unless Thou 
bless me." — Make no delay in thus pleading, 
dear H , for the Angels of Time and Op- 
portunity are with you now. And remem- 
ber though the gifts offered by the Angel 
of Opportunity often seem accidental, our 
preparation for such opportunities and 
the ability to use them when they come are 

among God's purpose and will for us 

*^ Oh, let us then receive and use aright the 
fleeting hours the Angel of Time grants us 
for the fulfilment of the service the Angel 
of Opportunity calls us to render. To do 
this we must regard each new day as a 
fresh unstained gift from God, and wres- 
tling with it earnestly from its earliest dawn, 
say to it, ^I will not let thee go unless 
thou bless me.' Oh, hallow it while it is 
yet unstained and innocent in your morn- 
ing prayer." 

The Angel of Prayer is such a help to 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 



237 



this consecration of minutes and hours, and 
** Prayer is an angel whose wing is strong 
as an eagle's, and by faith we may 'mount 
up as on eagle's wings/ Be prayerful then, 
and you will win the strength, peace, and 
joy that with the Angel of Prayer enters 
the soul." What a solemn thought this 
leads to, for " what your prayers are you 
will be ! " Remember this, and then pray 
"habitually, reverently, trustfully to your 
Heavenly Father " with the sweet confi- 
dence that He will make you ''wise with 
the wisdom of an angel " (2 Sam. iii. 16). 
Out of the blessing He grants in answer to 
such a prayer comes our introduction to the 
Angel of Deeds, and — 

** Prayer and Praise with loving Deeds are holy, 
Words of praise will never serve instead." 

For, — 

*' Still as for Himself the Infant Jesus 
In His little ones asks food and rest.'* 

** Help us, Lord ! not those Thy poor ones only, 
They are with us alway and shall be ; — 
Help the blindness of our hearts, and teach us 
In Thy homeless ones to succor Thee." 



238 



REST A WHILE. 



I will not linger to point you to the many 
other angels we meet as we tread life's 
pathway, but I think you will feel them 
near, and recognize their presence as God's 
servants of old did. Remember Daniel, and 
how he exclaimed, " My God hath sent His 
angel and hath shut the Lions' mouth that 
they should not hurt me " (Daniel vi. 22). 
And Elijah when, ^' as he lay and slept under 
a juniper-tree, behold, an angel touched him, 
and said unto him, Arise, eat " (i Kings 
xix. 5). And Gideon, who beheld ^^ an an- 
gel of the Lord face to face " (Judges vi. 
22). And Hagar, to whon the angel of God 
called out of Heaven, and said unto her, 
" What aileth thee, Hagar ? — Fear not, God 
hath heard thee " (Gen. xxi. 17). 

But I will not multiply these examples, 
rather I bid you ponder our Lord's promise 
and assurance that " He will give His an- 
gels charge over thee, to keep thee in all 
thy ways " (Ps. xci. 11). And in every time 
of your need they '' will come and minister 
unto you." For, " though no vision is 
vouchsafed to our mortal eyes, — although 
the darkness does not move and flash 
around us with bright faces and glorious 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 239 

plumes, — yet angels of God are with us, 
and to the pure heart every home is a 
Bethel, and every path of life a Penuel 

and a Mahanaim." 

Before we leave this subject you ask me 
to point you to the angels of the ' outer 
world ' — those angels who "excel in strength 
that do His commandments, hearkening 
unto the voice of His Word " (Ps. ciii. 20). 
A thought of Nature will give you a fuller 
reply than any words of mine can suggest, 
for " He maketh the winds His angels, and 
the flames of fire His messengers ; the sun 
and the moon utter His knowledge, and 
the morning stars shout His praise " (Ps. 
civ.; Job xxxvii.). 

** Oh, world, as God has made it ! all is beauty; 

And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. 
What further may be sought for or declared ? '* 



Still another suggestion you beg, and 
that, one which will help open your heart 
to the Angel of Submission, — which is 
found by " putting God between oneself 
and one's trial." — The angel who guides to 
this shield some call Renunciation^ but I bet- 
ter like the truer title, Resignation, Do you 



240 REST A WHILE. 

remember the lines addressed to this angel 
by H. H. ?— 

** Oh, wherefore thus, apart with drooping wings 
Thou stillest, saddest angel, 
With hidden face, as if but bitter things 
Thou hadst, and no evangel 
Of good tidings ? 

**Thou know'st that through our tears 

Of hasty, selfish weeping, 
Comes surer sun ; and for our petty fears 

Of loss, thou hast in keeping 
A greater gain than all of which we dreamed. 

Thou knowest that in grasping 
The bright possessions which so precious seemed, 

We lose them ; but, if clasping 
Thy faithful hand, we tread with steadfast feet 

The path of thy appointing, 
There waits for us a treasury of sweet 

Delight ; royal anointing 
With oil of gladness and of strength ! 

O, things 

Of Heaven, Christ's evangel 
Bearing, call us with shining face and poised wing, 

Thou sweetest, dearest angel ! " 

You will observe I have not dwelt on the 
Angel who comes to all, with no respect of 
person or estate — the Angel of Death ! — 
Meet him we must — and we know not when 



ANGELS BY THE WAY. 24I 

he Cometh, but as surely as the leaves 
of the forest fall, when summer is ended, 
so surely he will come, but with him comes, 
thank God, the stronger angel. Life ! Might- 
ier than Death. — And when we come to the 
sepulchre, this dear Angel will be the one to 
meet us as he met Mary, saying: "Why 
weepest thou ? Why seek ye the living 
among the dead ? Christ is Risen, and His 
promise is, ^ thou shalt follow Me.' " " Where 
I am, there ye shall be also." — 
Then, dear H , 

** Let us go on, go on, 
Still hoping ever and anon 
To reach one in the Better Land.'* — 

For— 

** Christ is Risen, mercy every way 
Is infinite." 

I know no better ending to this medita- 
tion on Angels than the collect which re- 
veals their all - encompassing nearness : 
*^ Everlasting God, who hast ordained and 
constituted the service of Angels and men 
in a wonderful order, mercifully grant that 
as Thy Holy Angels always do Thee service 
in heaven, so by Thy appointment, they 
II 



242 REST A WHILE. 

may succor and defend us on earth, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.** 

*' Angels of light, spread your bright wings and keep 
Near me at morn ; 
Nor in the starry eve, nor midnight deep 
Leave me forlorn. 

** From all dark spirits of unholy power 
Guard my weak heart ; 
Circle around me in each perilous hour, 
And take my part. 

** From all foreboding thoughts, and dangerous foes 
Keep me secure : 
Teach me to hope, and through the bitterest tears 
Still to endure. 

" If lonely in the road so fair and wide 
My feet should stray, 
Then through a rougher, safer pathway guide 
Me day by day. 

** Should my heart faint at its unequal strife. 
Oh, still be near ! 
Shadow the perilous sweetness of this life 
With holy fear. 

** Then leave me not alone in this bleak world 
Where'er I roam. 
And at the end, with your bright wings unfurled, 
Oh, take me Home." 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 



243 



*' Let me go, for the day breaketh As he 

passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him." — Gen. 
xxxii. 26, 31. 

* ' A pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the 
sun/' — Ecc. Yi. 7. 

*' How shall we reach God's upper light 
If life's long day hath no good-night ? " 



244 



X. 

LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 

WHAT a glad thing home-going is ! 
The heart beats high at the thought, 
and what a leap it gives when hope passes 
on from earth to Heaven, and we catch a 
glimpse of that last and gladdest Home- 
going the glory of which is unspeakable. 
And yet, almost always, hand in hand with 
this joyous anticipation comes a thought of 
the mystery and silence of the way that leads 
to the Heavenly Home. And so easily are 
the shifting tides of our emotions turned, in 
a moment that thought has power to take 
the gladness from our hearts, just as when 
a cloud passes before the sun, the bright- 
ness fades from the roses and honeysuckles 
of the June-time hedgerows. You tell me, 

dear H , this has happened to you, for 

so present has become the dread of the in- 
comprehensibleness and exceeding loneli- 

(245) 



246 



REST A WHILE. 



ness of going from this world into the next, 
your faith has become dim, and you cannot 
behold even a glimmer of the glorious Sun- 
rise that will dawn upon you when you 
pass over Penuel. You tell me, also, the 
consciousness of your sinful heart, the im- 
perfection of your repentance, your innu- 
merable omissions of duty, and commissions 
of evil, your general unfitness to meet God, 
weigh upon you till sometimes it seems 
well-nigh impossible to even hope for sal- 
vation. I do not wonder you feel thus, for 
there is, and ever must be, great mystery 
and awe, encompassing the hour when a 
soul passes from the known to the un- 
known, and parts from the mortal to put on 
immortality. And, when by thought, you 
are brought into the vivid realization of all 
this, it is but natural that your consciousness 
should be thus penetrated with a sense of 
your personal sinfulness, and the spiritual 
ruin which sin makes. Trying as this ex- 
perience is, surely it is not to be regretted, 
if through it, you learn the true meaning of 
Gethsemane and Calvary. For, taught by 
the truths which cluster around these cen- 
tral points of the Gospel — leading as they 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 



247 



do to the Cross of Christ, — you can calmly 
and hopefully wait for the hour you now 
dread. 

For the Cross bids you look away from 
self and sin — giving yourself, sin and all, to 
" Him that justifieth." If you do this, you 
will be at peace, though you may never be 
numbered among those rare souls to whom 
the hope of eternal life is so strong, the vis- 
ion of Heaven so near and real, that they 
look forward to going There with some- 
thing of exultant joy. That you cannot 
enter into this feeling is no cause for dis- 
couragement, for the desire either for life 
or death is no measure of the spiritual con- 
dition. Temperaments vary, and while there 
are some who never know the dread of death, 
there are others who shrink from it like a 
child frightened by the dark. Circumstances 
also make a great difference in the feeling 
with which men and women look toward it, 
and it would be as unreasonable to expect 
those whose earthly days are full of sweet 
content, who have close and near ties, and 
the prospect of a bright future, to long to 
depart, as it would be to expect birds to 
cease to sing in the glad sunshine of spring. 



248 



REST A WHILE. 



To such hearts, when the hour comes to go, 
it must always cost an effort to say, ^^ Thy 
will be done/' While for those whose dear- 
est have gone from earth to Heaven, those 
who have none left to whom they make the 
chief joy of life, and who perhaps have worn 
and weary bodies, the desire to "depart and 
be with Christ, which is far better," is no 
proof of special readiness or submission. 
Indeed for such Christians, often it requires 
greater trust to submit to God's will, when 
it ordains a still longer stay on earth, still 
more patient waiting for the call, bidding 
the weary to come Home, and enter into 
Rest. But among the glad and the sorrow- 
ful, the most frequent experience, is like 
yours, and many a time it causes the bravest 
hearts to pray to be delivered from the 
bondage, and the burden, which in accord- 
ance with our human language we call, the 
fear of * death ! ' — Why the Bible tells so lit- 
tle of this most momentous event no one can 
explain, but that there is great silence re- 
garding it, and the Hereafter, we all know. 
And, since no one has ever come back to 
tell, either of the way, or of the There, we 
must needs gather up the fragmentary hints 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 249 

of the Beyond which gem the pages of the 
Holy Book, where amid the encompassing 
silence, they shine like stars, glowing in the 
midnight sky. But better than this is the 
rest our souls can find, when by faith, they 
build their hopes on the strong foundation 
of our Lord Christ's victory over death, by 
which " He hath opened the kingdom of 
Heaven to all believers." — For while He is 
our Judge He is also our Saviour, and He 
has promised, "I will ransom thee from the 
power of death. Fear not, for I Am with 
thee." How wonderful all this. Well may 
our souls be filled with awe when brought 
into the presence of the Love and Mercy of 
this Holy One, " who knew no sin, and yet 
bore the sins of many," and who will choose 
the very best time and way for you, and for 
me, to pass through the valley of the shadow 
of death, on, to the sunlit land beyond. 
And though now, this valley seems, as you 
think of it, a dreary, fearsome place, when 
you come to it the " shadows will flee 
away," for 

** Christ hath died, yea, Christ is risen again : 
Wherefore both life and death grow plain 
To us who wax and wane, 
II* 



2^0 REST A WHILE. 

For Christ who rose shall die no more, 
Amen : till He makes all things plain 
Let us wax and wane." 



These words of man's wisdom are com- 
forting and true, but in the Holy Scriptures 
we find closer and dearer ones for our sup- 
port in the hour when ^^ fearfulness and 
trembling come : and the heart is over- 
whelmed, sore pained, and withered like 
grass '' — for at such hours the Comforter 
brings to remembrance that Christ is near. 
^* He will help," He has promised ; '^ Lo ! I 
Am with you always." — *^ My presence shall 
be with thee," — " Let not your heart be 
troubled, neither let it be afraid." In the 
strength of this upholding all you have to 

do, dear H , is to ask that His Will may 

be done in and i>y you. If this is truly your 
desire, you can also seek the added strength 
found in the humble, trustful pleading of 
the prayer the Church teaches her children: 
" Thou knowest. Lord, the secrets of our 
hearts, shut not Thy merciful ears to our 
prayers ; but spare us. Lord, most holy. 
O God, most mighty, O holy and merciful 
Saviour. Thou most worthy Judge eternal, 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 25 1 

suffer US not at our last hour from any 

pains of death to fall from Thee." 

As thus you pray remember — when that 
hour comes "He will hold you by your right 
hand/' " the Almighty Lord will be with 
vou ! *' And then — the afterwards ! " You 
shall obtain joy and gladness/' for " there 
shall be no more death, neither shall there 
be any more pain — the former things will 
have passed away/' and you will be lifted 
above the weight of fear. Thinking of this 
blessed Hereafter, do you not sympathize 
with the heathen amanuensis who, writing 
the Epistle of St. John, burst into tears 
when he came to the words, " Now are we 
the sons of God," exclaiming, " It is too 
much, let me write. Now are we permitted 
to kiss His feet/' — And through Hijn we 
are God's dear children ! God is our Fa- 
ther ! It is the knowledge of this which 
makes Heaven^ Home. It ranks us, also, 
among " the watchmen who wait for the 
dawn " — and to the watchmen " how beau- 
tiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
Him who bringeth good tidings/' — No won- 
der at His coming "they lift up the voice, 
and with the voice together shall they sing/' 



252 



REST A WHILE. 



Meanwhile, during the watching and wait- 
ing the heart of faith finds over-lapping joys 
wrapped within sorrow and even fear. If 
only you knew the Heavenly Father better 
you would understand this, and '' the Hope 
which enters within the veil," and you would 
be cheered through the troubles by a be- 
lieving vision of their * afterwards/ This 
is a truth that shines so brightly in the 
thought of the believer as a watchman, 
and one which speaks with especial earn- 
estness to God's tired children, among 
whom you are numbered. For who are 
the watchmen more truly than the weary 
ones who are waiting and looking for the 
first peep-o'-day. A blessed service if it be 
rendered in calm, Christ-like patience. Pa- 
tience ! how cold it seems for me to theo- 
rize on patience, who so lack myself patience 
even to work till the sunset, though so well 
I know out of the Night the Day dawns ! 

I suppose the real reason these thoughts 
and hopes of immortality do not flood the 
soul with a glory like sunrise is, that we do 
not in actual truth believe them, and so we 
miss the gladness we might enjoy, if it were 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 253 

not for the uncertainty of belief and hope. 
In the same way we suffer from our uncer- 
tainty regarding God's Fatherly Love for 
us. That is something so hard to realize, 
you say, and you add : ^^ When we think of 
the beauty, and vastness of this wonderful 
world, and remember it all cost God but a 
word, how can we make ourselves believe, 
we insignificant mortals, are better loved 
and of more value in His sight ? " If you 

are seeking, dear H , for evidences of 

the Heavenly Father's love by such com- 
parisons, I can only answer — you will find 
little satisfaction in them, or in natural the- 
ology. But — think of the reply held in one 
tear shed by the Lord Christ ! And tell me, 
is not that evidence enough to satisfy you 
with the ^ Love of the Father ' ? — Yes, sure- 
ly, Christ's love and compassion are the 
strong keys that unlock the mystery of 
God's love — and ^^ faith with no needle but 
a ray of light can weave immortal tapes- 
tries of tears." Christ the Interpreter — 
Christ the Revealer — if you fix your faith 
on Him, straightway He will guide you to 
the cleft of the Rock, and you will find 
that a place where the Lord " will show 



254 



REST A WHILE. 



thee His glory, and will make all His good- 
ness pass before thee/* for He has promised, 
*^ I will be gracious, I will show mercy — 
there is a place by Me^ and thou shalt stand 
upon a Rock" (Ex. xxxiii. 19-21). Thus 
through Christ we can exchange hope for 
assurance, and uncertainty for certainty. 
Something God's early people could not 
do, for all the acts of God, before Christ 
came, were like words waiting to be ex- 
plained. 

Have you ever thought, too, how, after 
He came, the world's life of suffering proved 
its best Dictionary ? — For, as you spell out 
the meaning of human love manifested in 
sacrifice and suffering, do you not begin to 
comprehend how God cannot manifest His 
Love toward us at a less cost ? Hence it is 
that satisfying evidence of God's Love is 
not attained by us till it is illuminated by 
the suffering of which St. John wrote : 
^^ Herein perceive we the Love of God, be- 
cause He laid down His Life for us." When 
we grasp even a hint which serves to inter- 
pret this Divine love, how quickly it be- 
comes a life-giving power, and how through 
it we find even the silence of the Bible re- 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 255 

garding mortal death, and immortal life, 
becomes voiceful and full of meaning, for 
the words of the Holy Book are, as the 
prophet said, " wheels in the middle of a 
wheel." We no sooner behold by faith the 
revolving of one, than another flashes be- 
fore us, with a still fuller significance. This 
is how so many of God's dear children have 
obtained precious inlooks into His Word, 
and caught glimpses of the redeemed in 
* glory. The dearest and the most life-like 
of these glimpses is the one recorded in the 
seventh chapter of Revelation, where we are 
told who they are, and what they are doing 
— "A great multitude which no man could 
number.'* Observe, not a few of the sweet- 
est, most richly endowed souls the world 
has known — but a mighty company, like 
the Love that redeemed them, something 
vast and merging into infinity. A multitude 
also not limited to one nation or country, 
but formed " of all nations, and kindred, 
and people, and tongues." Yes — "all sorts 
and conditions " are There — the lofty and 
the lowly, the learned and the ignorant, the 
young and the old, and each retains their 
own special self-hood, for souls, like stars, 



2S6 



REST A WHILE. 



differ in glory and magnitude ; nevertheless 
all differences are overborne by the prevail- 
ing likeness manifested by the sign of the 
Cross. We are told also, " these are they 
who came out of great tribulation/' for 

** The path to Heaven is steep and straight." 

It calls for many a hard struggle, many 
a life-battle in which the struggler seems 
vanquished according to the world's judg- 
ment. And yet, how often this seeming de- 
feat holds the promise of a victory greater 
than any this world can give ! And when 
once that Home is reached, all tribulation 
is over, they are a safe, a happy multitude 
who " have washed their robes, and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb ! " 
And though some ma)^ wear apparel more 
exquisite and beautiful than others, the hue 
and lustre of each is the same, for they all 
wear the stainless robe — the garment that 
tells of redeeming Love. And they all have 
' palms in their hands,' while " they cry with 
a loud voice, saying. Salvation to our God 
which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb." "Thanks be to God, who giveth 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 257 

US the victory through our Lord Jesus 

Christ." 

Of the occupation of these blessed ones 
we are told, " They are before the throne of 
God, and serve Him day and night in His 
temple." — " They rest not day and night, 
saying, Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Al- 
mighty, which was, and is, and is to come." 
And there is no weariness There, never a 
need to say, ^I am tired,' for work is rest, and 
rest is work — and every service is a sweet 
note in the Song of Life, that blessed song 
in praise and adoration of the ^ Three in 
One ' — " Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." 
Think, too, " He that sitteth on the throne 
shall dwell among them." And ^' the Lamb 
shall lead them unto Living Fountains," 
for " in Heaven every fountain lives, and 
each living fountain is a lesson full of God." 
And because Heaven is the Revelation of 
perfection it is described for us in words 
that, united, form a full-orbed whole, for 
while one half of John's vision gives us a 
glimpse of the rest and peace that reign in 
Beulah-land, the other half of his descrip- 
tion — as though to complete the picture — 
tells of the sorrows that are all unknown ; 



258 



REST A WHILE. 



where " they hunger no more, neither thirst 
any more, neither does the sun light on 
them nor any heat/* And as for tears, 
" God shall wipe all tears away." — Have 
you a right to hope for this glad, blessed 
ending to life's story ? I think St. Paul 
would tell you — "Yes" — "if you have 
fought a good fight and kept the faith." 
For when the time of his own departure 
drew near he said : " Henceforth there is 
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, 
which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall 
give me at that day; and not to 7ne only^ but 
unto all them also that love His appearing " 
(2 Tim. iv. 8). These are glorious words of 
hope, and yet Paul utters them with no 
hesitation. But as you say, dear, ^ that 
St. Paul should have this assured hope is a 
part of St. PauFs mighty faith, and no in- 
dex to your feeling of assurance,' — never- 
theless, unworthy as you are, your Redeem- 
er was Paul's Redeemer — the Lord Christ — 
and salvation is all through Him. Thus if 
we are truly in earnest in following Him, we 
may rest, I think, in the comforting faith of 
assurance, without either presumption or 
danger of spiritual pride. For the wonder 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 



259 



and magnitude of God's Love and Mercy- 
revealed in Christ, will be enough to keep 
us humble. And because this hope is one 
that can be distorted by the presumptuous, 
is no reason why we should lose the com- 
fort of it. And surely Scripture warrants 
us in believing with an assurance that is 
very real and true, and it fills the soul with 
a gladness before which fears and doubts 
vanish like clouds before the Rising Sun. 
If you look in your Bible for these precious 
words you will find how rich and full they 
are, and as you ponder them, God grant 
they may become in very truth your heart's 
language. Think of the blessedness of be- 
ing able to say, with a sense of ownership, as 
Job said : *^ I know that my Redeemer liv- 
eth " (Job xix. 25). A knowledge David 
echoed when he exclaimed, " I will fear no 
evil, for Thou art with me " (Ps. xxiii. 4). 
And that Isaiah proclaims in the words : 
"Thou wilt keep him \n perfect peace, whose 
mind is stayed on Thee, because He trusteth 
in thee '' (Isa. xxxiii. 17). But to attain this 
condition of rest and security you must 
" give diligence to make your calling sure " 
(2 Peter i. 10), for " the works of righteous- 



26o REST A WHILE. 

ness shall be peace, and the effect of right- 
eousness quietness and assurance for ever " 
(Isa. xxxii. 7). Do right — and then you will 
have " the full assurance of understanding " 
(Col. ii. 2); '"the full assurance of hope** 
(Heb. vi. 11). And you will be able to say 
with Paul, " / know whom I have believed, 
and am persuaded that He is able to keep 
that which I have committed to Him *' 
(2 Tim. i. 12). 

This is an assurance which leads on to 
the confidence that is " persuaded that 
neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor prin- 
cipalities, nor powders, nor things present, 
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to sep- 
arate us from the love of God, which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord *' (Rom. viii. 38, 39), for 
*^ We know that if our earthly house of this 
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a build- 
ing of God, an house not made with hands, 
eternal in the Heavens *' (2 Cor. v. i). Hence 
" we are always confident^'' for " we know that 
we are of God '* (i John v. 5), " we know that 
through Christ we have passed from death 
unto life.** — " We know that through Him 
we have eternal life** (i John v, 13). 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. " 26 1 

There are certain conditions, I repeat, in- 
volved in this assurance which you must 

keep in mind, dear H . And even then, 

you may not attain it immediately, for 
sometimes it is good for us to be kept wait- 
ing — and after you possess some measure 
of it, you will often be tried by doubt, and 
discouraged by failure, for you are still on 
earth, and "some doubts there will always 
be/' but let not this dismay you. Remem- 
ber, *^ he that never doubts has nothing to 
lose ; he that never fears possesses nothing 
truly valuable/' Be patient and steadfast, 
and in the end you will conquer through the 
One " sufficient for your weakness." And 
"good times and bad times all pass over"; 
and " all paths are right that lead to the 
mountain top, provided we remember that 
we are going up the hill, and keep ascend- 
ingy Therefore be content whether the 
way be long or short, rough or smooth ; 
* all is well,' if it be a Homeward way, for 
what matter if we reach Home ? 

** Home by different ways. Yet all 

Homeward bound through prayer and praise, 
Young with old, and great with small. 
Home by different ways. 



262 REST A WHILE. 

** Many nights and many days 

Wind must blow and rain must fall, 

Quake the quicksand, shift the haze. 
Life hath called and death will call, 

Saints who praying kneel at gaze, 
Ford the flood or leap the wall. 

Home by different ways." 

I referred to conditions on which the 
sense of assurance depends. One is, a con- 
stant mindfulness that while salvation does 
not depend on your work — for you are saved 
by grace — yet your sureness of it depends 
greatly on the way you live. Another con- 
dition is, that " inconsistency will dim 
your eyes and bring clouds between you 
and the sun. The sun is the same behind 
the clouds, but you will not be able to see 
its brightness or enjoy its warmth, and your 
soul will be gloomy and cold. It is in the 
path of well-doing that the day-spring of 
assurance will visit you and shine down 
upon your heart.'* For " the secret of the 
Lord is with them that fear Him, and He 
will show them His covenant'* (Ps. xxv. 14). 
And before that showing, even now here on 
earth, shadows disperse, and doubts and 
fears wax dim. And yet, this is only the 



LOOKING TOWARD SUNRISE. 



263 



Dawning. Think, then, what Sunrise will 
be! 

'* When He, the Lord, our Righteousness, shall come, 
And call His people from the East and West 
To dwell forever in the Eternal Light, 
At rest within the Paradise of God." 

Meanwhile, may "the Almighty Lord, 
who is a most strong tower to all them that 
put their trust in Him, be now and ever- 
more thy defence, and make \h^^ know and 
feel that there is none other name under 
heaven, through whom thou mayest receive 
life and salvation, but only the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ." 

** Man's life is but a working day 
Whose tasks are set aright ; 
A time to work, a time to pray, 
And then a quiet night. 

" And then, please God, a quiet night 
Where palms are green and robes are white, 
A long-drawn breath, a balm for sorrow — 
And all things lovely on the morrow." 



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MEMORIALS OF 

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By Her Sister, M. V. G. H. 

Wi^A Sieel Portrait and Illustration of her Birth" 
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**Full of good works of a gentle and loving spirit, 
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